


Rhythm of a Younger Heart

by chchchchcherrybomb, vinegarandglitter



Series: In the In-Between [5]
Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Angst, Dealing With Trauma, Discussions of Alternate Realities, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Missed Connections, Poetry, TW: sexual assault mention, Talking About the Past, Weird dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2021-01-29 07:29:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21406462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chchchchcherrybomb/pseuds/chchchchcherrybomb, https://archiveofourown.org/users/vinegarandglitter/pseuds/vinegarandglitter
Summary: Connor Murphy and Evan Hansen were not friends in high school. They did not know each other. They did not know how to talk to one another.Years and years and multiple deaths later, they're only starting to understand how many times their lives could have collided.ITIB-Verse, post "One Dream Away From The Ones Above".
Relationships: Evan Hansen/Connor Murphy
Series: In the In-Between [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1327037
Comments: 20
Kudos: 48





	Rhythm of a Younger Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Here’s a oneshot for you all, dealing with the events of “I’ll Be Something Better Yet”.

The difficult part about living with a workaholic, in Connor’s eyes, is the unspoken pressure it puts on you to do something _ useful _ with your evenings. When Evan’s busy on his laptop researching for his latest case, Connor always feels kind of ridiculous if he’s just taking Buzzfeed quizzes or watching YouTube videos, so ever since Evan moved in with him, he’s taken to getting a head start on his admin tasks for The Little Book Nook while Evan works. 

When Evan noticed him doing it the first time, he’d pointed out that Connor’s work schedule gave him a whole day for doing admin, that he had Fridays dedicated to getting that done, so he should just be relaxing in the evenings. Connor had replied that his favorite way of relaxing in the evenings was currently reading an analysis of soil samples. 

That had resulted in Evan putting his laptop on the bedside table and taking off Connor’s shirt, which Connor absolutely did not complain about. 

Evan tries not to be working from home every evening, which Connor appreciates, but he still feels like if Evan’s working, he should be too. Which is why he’s currently sitting at his kitchen table on his laptop just after one pm on a Friday, realizing that he’s run out of things to do. 

He’s already been out to get groceries. Had coffee with Zoe. Taken Evan lunch, which had resulted in ten minutes of awkward small talk with Evan’s boss Jonathan, who always seems to want to tell tales of how many times he’d beaten Connor’s dad in court over the past thirty years or so. Fuck, right before he got home, in a turn of events that he still finds completely insane, he’d actually helped a little old lady cross the street. 

When he’d texted Evan that, Evan had actually called, demanded to know if he was serious then laughed for at least a full minute. This had resulted in Asher, who he’d been sitting next to in some kind of meeting, hastily photoshopping Connor’s face onto a picture of a Boy Scout and sending him the image on Facebook Messenger. 

Multiple times. 

Connor goes through his admin one more time, checks all his to-do lists, but he’s coming up with a blank. For the first time in a long time there is literally nothing to do admin-wise for The Little Book Nook, because he’s had such a head start with these evenings with Evan. Edgar, who is perched on his shoulder, meows as if to say ‘yes, this is indeed unusual’, and Connor spends the next ten minutes double and triple-checking everything, only to find that he hasn’t miscalculated. 

He could do some work in the stock room, he decides, and with that, heads down to the store floor. 

The store is empty, which isn’t surprising for right after the lunch rush, and Jax is standing behind the desk with Maureen lounging in front of it. They’re both holding small books, which Connor recognizes as part of a series of poetry collections that are dirt cheap and pocket-sized they’d just got in. Jax is, rather dramatically, reading a poem aloud, and Maureen is watching them with a fond expression on her face. 

_ “Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art— _

_ Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night _

_ And watching, with eternal lids apart, _

_ Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, _

_ The moving waters at their priestlike task _

_ Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, _

_ Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask _

_ Of snow upon the mountains and the moors— _

_ No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable, _

_ Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, _

_ To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, _

_ Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, _

_ Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, _

_ And so live ever—or else swoon to death.” _

Maureen applauds, and Jax bows theatrically, a big grin on their face, and Connor once again finds himself thinking that one of these days he’s going to have to lock the two of them in the store room until they confess their feelings for each other. 

“So this is what you two get up to when I’m not around,” Connor says with a smirk. They both look at him and turn slightly pink. “Very romantic.”

“I just like Keats,” Jax says, their tone slightly defiant, and Maureen nods. 

“You like his love poems?” Connor can’t help but tease. “Seriously, you two - I show up and you’re reciting each other romantic poetry. You sure you’re not secretly married or something?”

“We’re friends,” Maureen says with a not entirely convincing roll of her eyes. 

“Heard that one before,” says Connor cheerfully, before joining them at the counter and taking one of the poetry collections from the display. “I do like these books, though. They’d be perfect for just putting in your pocket or bag or whatever in case you run into a poetry emergency.”

“Please explain what a poetry emergency is,” Jax says immediately, clearly amused. 

“I can see it,” says Maureen, a mischievous glint in her eye. “Say you stumble across a dead body in Central Park. You’re going to want something nice and cheerful. Like Hemmingway or Plath.”

“Or this little guy’s namesake,” Jax says, reaching out to scratch Edgar Allan Paw, who has jumped off Connor’s shoulder onto the counter, behind the ears.

“There’s always Emily Dickinson,” Maureen says helpfully. She opens up one of the little pocket poetry books. “Personally, I’ve always been partial to this one.”

Maureen clears her throat, straightens her shoulders and starts reading. 

_ “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, _

_ And Mourners to and fro _

_ Kept treading - treading - till it seemed _

_ That Sense was breaking through - _

_ And when they all were seated, _

_ A Service, like a Drum - _

_ Kept beating - beating - till I thought _

_ My mind was going numb - _

_ And then I heard them lift a Box _

_ And creak across my Soul _

_ With those same Boots of Lead, again, _

_ Then Space - began to toll, _

_ As all the Heavens were a Bell, _

_ And Being, but an Ear, _

_ And I, and Silence, some strange Race, _

_ Wrecked, solitary, here - _

_ And then a Plank in Reason, broke, _

_ And I dropped down, and down - _

_ And hit a World, at every plunge, _

_ And Finished knowing - then -” _

Connor knows this poem. 

Knows it by heart. 

Knows it intimately. 

It feels like something is trying to claw its way out of his chest, like something inside him has been shaken loose and is trying to escape, and it’s cold and sharp and heavy, so heavy Connor feels like it might crush him. 

“Pretty sure the first thing you should do if you come across a dead body in Central Park is call the police,” says Jax, and it feels like their voice is coming from very far away. 

“Read the poem first,” says Maureen, her voice equally distant. “It won’t matter. He’s already dead.”

English class. 

They read this poem in English class, senior year of high school.

Connor read it and…

Evan. 

Evan was there. 

Evan was there, and they both read the poem. Not aloud, both in their heads.

And Connor had seen… something on his face. 

Something he recognized. 

But he hadn’t said anything. 

He hadn’t talked to him, he hadn’t tried to reach out, he’d just…

He’d just gone home and slit his wrists. 

Fuck. 

Fuck. 

Fuck. 

“Okay, pick something less depressing next,” says Jax. Connor looks at his employees, who are now hunched over the same copy of the book, shoulders close together, and normally he’d be teasing them about how they’re clearly both stupidly in love, but he can’t do it today, he can’t do that because his head is spinning and his chest hurts and over a decade ago he read a poem in English class with the man he loves, a man he didn’t even know then, because he couldn’t talk to him, he couldn’t reach out, he…

_ “So what do you think this is about?” _

Connor remembers how fast Evan had talked, how uncomfortable he’d looked. 

Scared. 

Scared of Connor. 

_ “Descent into madness.” _

Fuck. 

Of course he’d been scared of Connor. Connor had been…

He’d shoved him for no reason, he’d tried to apologize and made things worse, he’d taken his therapy letter, he’d been awful. Connor had been _ awful _ to Evan in high school. 

Fuck. 

Fuck. 

“Right,” Connor manages to choke out. “Just checking in, if you need me I’ll be upstairs.” 

Jax and Maureen barely notice him go. Or maybe he’s the one who doesn’t notice. 

_ “Repetition,” _ Evan had said. _ “There’s repetition. In the treading, treading and the beating, beating and…” _

_ “Down and down. Yeah.” _

Connor sits at the kitchen table and thinks about his 27th birthday. How they’d died and died and died. 

Repetition. 

It’s like some kind of sick fucking joke. 

Repetition. 

He puts his hands in his head and tries to even out his breathing. 

Fuck. 

He takes a few more deep breaths. Stands up, goes to the sink and has a glass of water, hoping it’ll calm him down a little. Ground him.

Connor doesn’t like to think about high school. Actively avoids it. He doesn’t like to think about how angry he’d been, how lost and alone, how it had felt like there was nothing for him, like nothing was ever going to get better. 

How lonely he’d been. So fucking lonely. 

He knows Evan was lonely in high school, too. They don’t talk about it, but…

Connor knows. 

He’s known Evan for most of his life, he realizes, but he’s only really known him for the past few years. 

How is it that he’s known Evan for so long and only really known him recently? How blind did he have to be not to see it?

Connor remembers meeting Evan again in the elevator, then seeing him again at the diner, then the pub. Remembers how obvious it had been that Evan was suffering, that Evan wasn’t okay, that Evan needed help. 

It had poured off him in waves. Obvious. So painfully obvious. 

Had it been obvious back in high school, too?

Had it just…

Had Connor been too wrapped up in his own shit to see that someone needed help?

Not like he’d have been able to help at all, even if he had seen. 

Connor remembers the first year he and Evan were friends. Remembers going back to their hometown as adults and it being so different, so completely removed from who he’d been when he’d called that place home. 

Remembers what Evan had said before they left New York. 

_ “Sometimes I wish we’d been friends growing up.” _

Connor looks at the fridge almost instinctively. Zoe had a set of those photo magnets made for his birthday earlier in the year and his eyes are drawn to the one of him and Evan, aged 10, at Connor’s Harry Potter birthday party. Neither boy is looking at the camera, both engrossed in a copy of the Sorceror’s Stone. Evan’s in his homemade costume, while Connor’s in a fancy store-bought version. 

They’re so young. 

So small. 

They look comfortable together. 

They…

Those boys deserved better than growing up alone. 

Evan deserved better. 

Connor sits down at the kitchen table again, feeling both heavy and light at the same time. It’s like he’s being overwhelmed with memories, overrun, his head full of snippets of moments he’d forgotten, perhaps intentionally, because now that they’re here, they hurt they hurt they hurt. 

Evan had invited Connor to his bar mitzvah.

Connor hadn’t gone. 

Why hadn’t he gone?

He hadn’t gone because he didn’t get the invite until after the day of the party, he didn’t know, he missed it, and he didn’t say anything because he didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to talk to him. 

In senior year, Connor didn’t know how to talk to Evan. 

He didn’t know. He didn’t know. 

He should have known. 

He knows Evan now, he can talk to him now, and what they have is precious and real and yet somehow it seems fragile, it seems completely surprising, because it had taken them so long. 

Too long. 

He should have talked to him then. 

Would it have made a difference?

Maybe they wouldn’t have died, over and over. 

Maybe they wouldn’t have been so alone. 

Maybe Connor wouldn’t have slit his wrists in the bathtub, an hour after reading an Emily Dickinson poem. 

Maybe Evan wouldn’t have jumped. 

From a tree. 

From a building. 

Maybe he wouldn’t have…

Fuck. 

Connor remembers sitting at a table at IHOP with Evan, that first November they were friends, admitting that he’d wished they were friends in high school. He remembers what Evan had said. 

_ “Me too. Definitely would have beat hanging out with Jared all the time.” _

And his stomach goes cold again, because another memory is surfacing, a memory he definitely tried to forget of Jared Kleinman kissing him in the boy’s bathroom, grabbing him and kissing him after years of bullying. 

And then he remembers what else Evan had said at the IHOP that first November. 

_ “We kind of… dated. Sort of. For a little while at the end of senior year.” _

Fuck. 

Fuck, had Jared…

Had Jared kissed Connor when he was with Evan? Was Connor somehow part of Evan getting cheated on in high school? The idea makes him sick, even though he’d by no means invited the kiss from Jared, he hadn’t wanted it, he hadn’t…

Connor finds himself rushing to the kitchen sink to throw up. It’s violent and sudden and messy and… fuck. Fuck fuck fuck it feels like something’s crawling under his skin, it feels like there’s something murky and disgusting, thick and tar-like, crawling under his skin.

He remembers coming into the bathroom, his high wearing off, tying up his hair and washing his face and trying to ignore Jared’s incessant babbling, his pointed questions about where Connor had been. 

He’d tried to leave and Jared had grabbed his wrist. Tight. Hard. 

He’d frozen. He should have moved, should have done something, but he’d frozen, and Jared had grabbed his jacket and kissed him. 

At least it wasn’t his first kiss. 

That honor is still with Dennis the weed guy, who Connor’s increasingly grateful for because if it hadn’t been for him, then that moment with Jared would have… 

Could have been his first kiss. 

Connor remembers Dennis saying that his first kiss should be with someone who likes him, and even though Dennis was and remains straight, it had been nice. 

That moment with Jared had been… paralyzing. Unsettling. 

He hadn’t had a choice. 

He should have pushed him away sooner. Should have…

Fuck. 

He hadn’t put it together, not until now, but it seems clear. Jared and Evan had dated at the end of senior year of high school. Jared had kissed Connor at the end of senior year of high school. 

Connor wonders if Evan knows. 

Wonders if Evan blames him.

Connor hates the idea that he was a part of something that could have hurt Evan. 

He rinses out the sink, gets another glass of water and rinses out his mouth. As he does, Connor finds himself thinking that moment wasn’t the first time he’d hurt Evan. 

Connor shoved Evan in the hallway on the first day of senior year, not even noticing his broken arm, a broken arm Connor now knows the _ exact _ cause of, a broken arm that…

Fuck. 

Connor didn’t lend Evan his copy of Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone on his tenth birthday, even though he should have. 

Connor didn’t go to Evan’s bar mitzvah. 

Didn’t even tell him why. 

Fuck. 

Fuck, he’s such an asshole. 

Fuck. 

Connor goes to sit at the kitchen table, opens his laptop and tries to distract himself with something. Anything. 

But he can’t concentrate. He can’t concentrate, he can’t think, all he can do is just stare at the screen until it goes black. 

He should have gone to Evan’s bar mitzvah. Should have checked his locker more regularly so he hadn’t missed it, or at least said something. Apologized. Been a fucking decent human being about it. 

Fuck. 

Fuck. 

Connor hears the door to the apartment open, and his heart clenches tightly in his chest to see Evan standing in the doorway, his face soft and warm and cheerful. Evan smiles like he always does, that wonderful bright smile that rivals the sun, and he looks so happy to see him, here in this apartment where they live together, where they have lived together for months now, and Connor can’t help but be acutely aware of whatever it is that’s crawling in his skin, thick and sludge-like, terrified that it’ll somehow leak out and hurt the man he loves. 

“Hey there, boy scout,” Evan says, his voice teasing. Then he looks at Connor and something in his expression shifts. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

“I didn’t go to your bar mitzvah,” Connor blurts out, his stomach twisting violently. “I’m so fucking sorry. I didn’t get the invitation until after the party because I was a shithead who never checked my fucking locker but I should have said something, I should have explained, I’m such a fucking asshole-”

“Connor,” Evan interrupts, taking a seat next to him, his eyes wide with alarm. “Connor, that was nearly twenty years ago, what’s going on?”

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I keep hurting you and I’m sorry.”

“You don’t,” Evan says, his voice firm. He takes Connor’s hand and squeezes it tightly. “What happened? Where is this coming from?”

Connor closes his eyes. “Poetry,” he says, not wanting to look at Evan. There’s a moment of silence, and he realizes Evan’s waiting for him to continue. “We’re selling these poetry books at the shop and…” He opens his eyes. Looks at Evan. “Emily Dickinson. Senior year of high school.”

Evan frowns for a moment, then his face shifts. Turns pale. 

Connor can pinpoint the exact moment that the memory hits, and he fucking hates it. 

“I felt a funeral in my brain,” Evan says, his voice so, so quiet. “That was the one, right?”

“We read it together,” Connor says, knowing he’s not making any fucking sense, but trying to explain, because this is his Evan, sitting next to him, holding his hand. The Evan he knows. Loves. Who knows and loves him. 

Which is why it hurts to say this so fucking much. 

“I should have talked to you,” Connor continues. “I should have talked to you in high school, or middle school, or elementary school, or something. I should have… if I had, then maybe we wouldn’t have… maybe…”

Evan’s voice is soft. “Connor. Hey.”

“We read that poem together in English class,” Connor says, looking at their intertwined hands, not Evan’s face. “And right after English class, I went home, ran a bath and slit my wrists.”

* * *

Evan spent the day in meetings, broken up by Connor. Not a bad way to spend the day, all told, Evan thought. Evan liked his job. He got to work with a friend today. His awesome boyfriend brought him lunch and sent him silly, utterly adorable texts about how he’d run out of things to do so he genuinely helped a little old lady cross the street. And now he got to go home to his awesome, adorable, sweet boyfriend and they had an entire weekend to spend together ahead and Evan felt good. He felt good. 

It was still a little weird for him to get off the subway and head to the bookstore every single night. Not because he wasn’t basically always there before Connor asked him to move in (he was, like, basically all of the time), but because there wasn’t another place where he’d go. His things had all moved to Connor’s apartment. His desk was in the second bedroom now. His clothes were all stored in the dresser and closet in Connor’s bedroom. His toothbrush lived in a cup next to Connor’s, and his meds sat on the bedside table next to Connor’s. 

When Evan and Sabrina had moved in together, it hadn’t felt entirely real. Half of the time it felt as if the two of them were playing house - acting like how they thought a grown-up couple ought to act. The other half, it felt like they were just really terrible roommates who sometimes slept in the same bed and had sex. Living with Connor felt so much more real. So much more genuine. He lived there because Connor wanted him around all of the time and because Evan wanted to be around Connor all of the time too. It was weird and it had taken some adjusting (and there had been a few nights where Evan had gotten off at the wrong subway stop), but overall Evan was over the moon that every night he got to go home to Connor and every morning he got to wake up next to him. And Edgar, a lot of the time. 

Evan made his way to the bookstore. When he stepped inside, he happened upon Maureen and Jax, both giggling and pink in the face, looking like they were arranging a display of poetry paperbacks. Or _ trying _to arrange it while they flirted shamelessly. Evan was pretty sure one of them should have clocked out by now, but he knew that when Jax and Maureen were scheduled together, they ended up staying past quitting time just to spend time together. 

Jax was standing on one side of the display, reading Keats in a performatively posh voice, “_ Darkling I listen; and, for many a time _

_ I have been half in love with easeful Death, _

_ Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, _

_ To take into the air my quiet breath; _

_Now more than ever seems it rich to die,_

_ To cease upon the midnight with no pain, _

_While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad_

_ In such an ecstasy! _

_ Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain— _

_To thy high requiem become a sod._”

Maureen clapped enthusiastically when they finished and Evan had to suppress a laugh because it was admittedly extremely cute to watch her get so excited over someone reading a poem about death. “Ode to a Nightingale” was one of Evan’s favorites; he _ had _been an English major afterall. He’d written many papers on the poem. (Sabrina called it depressing in undergrad, but Evan still loved it all the same.)

Jax took a deep bow and then straightened, apparently noticing that Evan was there. But Maureen hadn’t caught on; she only had eyes for Jax, watching them smile awkwardly and basically beaming at them. Maureen and Jax seemed to be taking a page out of Connor and Evan’s own playbook these days: flirting constantly, spending all of their time together, and swearing that they weren’t a couple. 

It was driving Connor crazy, and that tickled Evan to no end. 

“They are clearly in love!” Connor protested for probably the hundredth time a few weeks back. He threw himself somewhat dramatically onto the bed, draping himself across Evan’s lap “They’re just being stubborn.” 

“You hear yourself, right?” Evan had said, putting down the report on sea moss he had been reading. 

“I’m going to lock them in the stockroom,” Connor complained. 

“If someone had locked us in the stockroom, we just would have fucked and then still not talked about it.” Evan smiled. “We’d still be in there, probably.”

“Would we?” Connor said, tugging at the hem of Evan’s shirt playfully. 

“I love you,” Evan said, and then he lost himself in kissing and touching Connor. 

Maureen looked at bit sheepish upon seeing that Jax was looking at Evan. “Oh! I didn’t realize you were here already.”

“Hi,” Evan said, giving them a wave and biting the inside of his cheek so he wouldn’t look smug or smile too broadly. “How’s it going?”

Jax grinned sheepishly. “Good. We uh. We’re in a poetic mood,” They said. 

“In my defence, Jax started it,” Maureen said, smiling fondly, her face a delicate pink that matched the color of her hair when she first started working at the bookstore. It didn’t look bad against the coral her hair was dyed right now, but it did give Maureen an overall very pinkish appearance. “They’ve been reading me poems all day.”

“In _ my _defence, Maureen enabled me,” Jax replied, and they were looking at Maureen lovingly that Evan could sort of see Connor’s point about locking these two in a room. “She kept clapping whenever I read something.”

Evan smiled at them. “Well, I’ll leave the two of you to your poetry reading then,” he said, making his way to the stairs leading up to Connor’s apartment. 

His apartment. His and Connor’s. 

_ Theirs _. 

Evan was still getting used to that, truth be told. 

He walked inside, smiling and saying, “Hey there, boy scout,” to Connor. 

But then Evan caught sight of the expression on Connor’s face, this horribly sad and pained expression and all thoughts of teasing his do-gooder boyfriend vanished, almost violently. Something was wrong. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?” 

“I didn’t go to your bar mitzvah,” Connor said, and his voice was so strained and full of pain. Evan had no fucking idea what would make Connor bring that up. Honestly, Evan only half-remembered inviting him. “I’m so fucking sorry. I didn’t get the invitation until after the party because I was a shithead who never checked my fucking locker but I should have said something, I should have explained, I’m such a fucking asshole-”

“Connor,” Evan said, grabbing the seat beside Connor, interrupting because he… He had no clue why Connor might be apologizing for something that happened so long ago. Something so insignificant. He thought back suddenly to when Connor had his appendix out last summer and worried that something horrifying and unreal might have happened again, and Evan found himself suddenly worried that Connor had, like, relived being thirteen and not attending a stranger’s bar mitzvah. “Connor, that was nearly twenty years ago, what’s going on?”

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I keep hurting you and I’m sorry.”

Evan felt his heart pick up speed. “You don’t,” Evan said, and grabbed Connor’s hand and squeezed it tightly. “What happened? Where is this coming from?”

Connor didn’t look at him. “Poetry,” Connor said softly, his eyes closing like he was in pain. 

Evan had no idea what that meant. 

“We’re selling these poetry books at the shop and… Emily Dickinson. Senior year of high school.”

Emily Dickinson…?

Evan didn’t… he frowned, trying to remember, why Connor would get upset over Emily Dickinson. Then it hit him, like a bus with Alana Beck’s face on it, like the fast-approaching ground when you step out into the air, when you let go. 

_ Fuck _. 

Their AP Literature class had read an Emily Dickinson poem once. Evan didn’t remember anything else they’d read in that class as vividly as he remembered that because it had stuck with him. “I Felt a Funeral In My Brain.” The words, the repetition, the fact that he was paired with Connor Murphy to discuss the poem and then Connor disappeared and Evan realized he didn’t know how long Connor had been gone by the time it registered that he wasn’t in classes. And Evan had wanted to apologize about his stupid letter, while they sat there together, faces hovering over that poem, but he couldn’t make his mouth move, couldn’t get the sounds out of his throat and then the bell rang and he’d scampered off to whatever other classes he had that day. 

“I felt a funeral in my brain,” Evan said. Answered for himself. Practically whispered. “That was the one, right?”

“We read it together,” Connor said, his voice so fucking sad and hopeless and Evan… Evan didn’t follow. Yes, they read it together, and yeah it… stuck. He had definitely carried those words around with him for most of that year. But he didn’t understand why it would make Connor react this way, he didn’t follow how he’d gone from a sad poem with bad high school memories attached to looking so wrecked at his kitchen table, how that had led him to worrying about a mostly forgotten bar mitzvah invitation.

Connor went on, “I should have talked to you. I should have talked to you in high school, or middle school, or elementary school, or something. I should have… if I had, then maybe we wouldn’t have… maybe…”

_ Maybe nothing would be different at all. _

Evan swallowed uncomfortably, his own unspoken words hanging between them for a second, just long enough for their weight to settle. 

Evan squeezed Connor’s hand gently. “Connor. Hey.”

“We read that poem together in English class,” Connor said slowly, and he wasn’t looking at Evan. He was staring at their hands, their fingers laced together, resting on Evan’s knee. “And right after English class, I went home, ran a bath and slit my wrists.”

It took a moment to sink in, and then Evan felt his throat go tight, felt the sudden burn and sting of his eyes tearing and he tried to blink the tears away, he tried to keep his face neutral because Connor needed him right now so he couldn’t fall apart but it still hurt. Evan squeezed Connor’s hand, trying to find his voice, but he couldn’t because his eyes had focused in on the faint but still visible scar on Connor’s left wrist. 

He knew the feeling of that skin under his fingers, knew the way it puckered and the slight shine the scar had in the light. Evan knew what had left the mark there, he knew it even though he did his best not to think about how and why it existed. He knew that there was a matching one on Connor’s right wrist, concealed mostly by a tattoo of a raven. You could still feel it, if you gently touched the delicate skin there. Evan’s fingers had brushed it so many times since they had met again that it was practically common to him now. Almost unremarkable.

Evan knew that scar. He knew it almost as well as he knew the scar on his left elbow, the scar that he had from falling out of a tree, one that resulted after a cut was stitched up and Evan had picked at and prodded the stitches, trying to reassure himself he was real he was real he was real after they had put his arm in a cast.

Evan knew in vague terms what had happened to Connor senior year. 

Connor slit his wrists in the bathtub. Zoe saved his life. He was off school for a while. 

He first told Evan about it when they were still dying, he first told Evan when Evan had come to confess that _ his _suicide had been what trapped them in their loops, but Evan hadn’t known.

They don’t talk about it, not really. 

Evan hadn’t known. 

About it being the day they read that poem. It made sense. That was right after Thanksgiving, and Connor didn’t come back to school until February. 

He hadn’t known. 

Fuck, he’d wanted to apologize for his weird fucking letter that day. He’d tried to work up the nerve and failed. Evan hadn’t known. 

But maybe he should have. “Connor, I am so sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” Connor looked at him, his expression so twisted and pained. “Why are you sorry, I’m the one - I was awful to you, I -”

Evan didn’t follow. 

“I… fuck I pushed you on the first day of school and you had a fucking broken arm,” Connor said, his voice almost cracking, a sort of frantic, panicked energy to his words. “You had a broken fucking arm and I shoved you and-and you didn’t even do anything to me, you were just _ there -” _

“Connor,” Evan tried gently, but he just kept going. 

“And then I… Fuck how do you not hate me? I took your letter.”

Evan swallowed hard, remembering it, flashing back for a moment to his own frantic words, his desperation to make Connor understand, his pathetic mewling, _ “Can you please - can you just _ please _ give it back?” _

“It was a misunderstanding,” Evan said, trying to keep his voice steady. “You didn’t - I wasn’t -”

Connor went on as if he hadn’t heard Evan. Maybe he hadn’t. “Who does that? Who just steals someone’s personal shit like that, and then I didn’t even -” Connor’s breathing is uneven and shaky and Evan doesn’t know what to do. “I read it.”

“I know you did,” Evan said. “You told me.”

“Yeah, almost a fucking decade later,” Connor said, sounding disgusted. He shook his head. “I read it that day. I took your letter and I kept it, I kept it and I read it- That was private, that’s so fucked up, I took something private -”

Evan laughed, almost darkly. “It was a suicide note, Connor. It wasn’t _ that _private.”

Connor swallowed audibly, pain flashing over his face. He looked for a second like he might be sick. “I knew that, I knew you weren’t okay, I-I could tell you were struggling, like me, I knew it and I didn’t do anything.”

Evan reached out and gently turned Connor’s face until he was looking at Evan. “Connor. You were seventeen. That wasn’t your job.” Seventeen-year-olds couldn’t be expected to save each other. They couldn’t even be expected to save themselves. 

“I fucked up,” Connor went on, his voice rough and strained. He looked horrified, guilty…. Just hurt. He wouldn’t return Evan’s gaze. “I should have talked to you, I had so many chances and I just I didn’t I never did and then there was the thing with fucking Kleinman -”

“What thing with Jared?” Evan said sharply. There was a thing with Jared?

“I’m so fucking sorry,” Connor said, and he turned his head again, he didn’t meet Evan’s eye. “I didn’t know you two were - I’m so sorry, I didn’t want -”

“Connor, what happened?” Evan asked helplessly, terrified, unsure what his boyfriend was talking about. 

“He kissed me. In the bathroom, near the end of senior year. I was… high and he was an asshole, giving me shit about it, and asking where I’d been when I was off school. I froze. I... I didn’t… I should have pushed him away sooner, I should have - I didn’t _ want _ -”

Evan felt his blood pounding too hard in his ears, his heart thumping too fast in his chest. “He kissed you without your consent?”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” Evan asked, horrified, “Connor that’s _ assault _.”

“No. No. It was stupid, I shouldn’t have let it happen.”

“Connor -”

“And you two were dating, he was like, I dunno, _ cheating _ on you or whatever -”

“Connor, stop. Listen, please. I don’t care about fucking Jared,” He said, his voice breaking. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know that happened to you. I’m so sorry.”

“I never told anybody,” Connor said quietly. “I didn’t even… I don’t know.”

“I am so sorry that happened. I am so fucking sorry,” Evan said, squeezing Connor’s hand. “I can’t believe he did that to you. You didn’t deserve that.”

“I’m being stupid,” Connor shook his head. “He didn’t even really _ do _anything. Like, what am I... He’s, like, a foot shorter than me, and it was just a kiss, like, I should have pushed him off or -”

“Connor,” Evan said as gently as he could manage. “He kissed you without permission. That’s fucked up. That’s horrible -”

“It’s not even a big deal,” Connor said, shaking his head. “He was dating _ you _.”

That was so far from Evan’s mind. Who gave a shit if he and Jared were sort of a thing? He’d fucking sexually assaulted Connor and Evan never knew. He was furious. He wanted to punch Jared in the face. He… he hated that Jared had done that to Connor. He hated himself for being with someone who could do that to another person. He hated it. He didn’t want Connor to feel guilty or blame himself, it wasn’t his fault in the slightest, it wasn’t… “Connor, I am so sorry he did that to you.”

“It’s not… I made this about me, I -”

“Connor.”

“It wasn’t even… It was just a kiss it, it wasn’t like… It wasn’t _ assault _ -”

“Connor,” Evan said softly, taking a shaky breath. “Do you… you remember when I told you about the time with - with Richard? At his barbecue?” 

Connor nodded. “Yeah, asshole put his hands on you with his husband in the next room.”

“What would you call that?” Evan asked softly. 

“It’s not the same thing,” Connor said, sounding frustrated. “Richard was your _ boss. _Jared was just an asshole… It wasn’t… I. I hurt you and so did he -”

Evan gently squeezed Connor’s hand. “I am so sorry that happened. But that was not your fault.”

* * *

Evan is being so kind and so nice and it makes Connor want to scream. He doesn’t deserve this, he doesn’t. It’s not the same. It’s not the fucking same. 

Fuck, every time Connor thinks about Richard, his skin crawls and he just wants to punch his lights out, wants to fucking destroy him, wants to tear him to pieces forever daring to touch Evan, for what he did, it makes him sick to think he’d ever trusted him, fucked him, horrifies him to his core that he’d spent a year having a fucking affair with someone who _ hurt Evan, _ who touched him without his consent, fuck. _ Fuck. _

Compared to that… Jared kissing him is nothing. 

It doesn’t count. 

It isn’t… it isn’t the fucking same. 

It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t… 

It doesn’t matter that Connor’s heart still speeds up, blood rushing uncomfortably whenever he thinks about that day in the bathroom, Jared’s hand on his wrist, then pulling on his collar, pressing his lips against him. He doesn’t think about it a lot, deliberately doesn’t think about it, because it makes him feel cold, like he’d literally frozen in place rather than just figuratively, makes him feel paralyzed and vulnerable and he should have stopped him he should have stopped him it wasn’t...

“This isn’t about me,” he tries to explain again, frustration curling up his insides, taking its place alongside the ice. “It’s not… it is, but it’s not that… it’s…”

“Connor.”

Evan squeezes his hand again and part of Connor wants to rip his hand away, pull away, get away away away because Evan’s eyes are warm and sad and he looks worried and that’s on him, that’s Connor’s fault, it’s all his fucking fault. 

“I should have gone to your bar mitzvah,” he says instead. “I should have… I should have talked to you, should have lent you Harry Potter when we were ten, should have given back your letter, shouldn’t have shoved you when you had a broken arm, should have actually apologized.” He swallows hard. “That’s what I… I was trying to apologize and I fucked it up.” 

“You were seventeen,” Evan says again, like it’s some kind of excuse. “All these things you’re talking about… you were just a kid, Connor, a lonely kid, just like I was.” 

Connor shakes his head. “I should have-”

“I could have talked to _ you _ that day in English class,” Evan interrupts, something bitter in his tone. “I could have… I wanted to? I tried to? Because you were… you were kind to me, for a moment. You noticed that no one had signed my cast.” Evan lets out this short sharp laugh that cuts Connor to his core. “No one else noticed. Or cared. And you…”

“Stole your letter, swore at you and didn’t even give you a proper apology,” Connor finishes, looking at their intertwined hands once again. He still feels like he doesn’t deserve to be holding Evan’s hand like this, but he can’t bring himself to pull away, because it would hurt Evan, and Connor’s done enough of that for a lifetime. 

“If I’d talked to you that day in English,” Evan says cautiously, “then maybe you wouldn’t have… maybe I could have helped, maybe things would have turned out different for you, maybe you wouldn’t have-.”

Connor feels a sharp tug in his chest. “No,” he says in a rush. “No, Evan, you couldn’t have known, you can’t think like that, okay?”

Evan looks at him and lets out a soft sigh. “Neither can you.”

It’s like something inside him is unwinding, and it’s slow but it feels like a release, just a little. “But I knew,” he protests weakly. “I read your letter and I _ knew _, and I didn’t…” 

He trails off. He doesn’t know what else to say. 

He can feel his eyes burning, stinging. He’s trying desperately not to cry. 

“Connor,” Evan says, his voice so, so soft. “You couldn’t have known. We didn’t know each other. Not really.”

“I wish we had,” Connor confesses in a rush as he realises he’s losing the battle to fight back tears. “I really, really wish we’d known each other.”

Evan reaches out and pulls Connor into a tight hug.

Connor stops fighting and lets himself cry. 

*****

Evan held onto Connor tightly, and after a moment Connor hugged him back, wrapped his arms around Evan and started to cry. Evan just let him, not speaking, not interrupting, just holding him tight and being there. He tried to keep his own sniffling to a minimum. He knew he was a quiet crier, but right now seemed especially important not to let on that he was crying too. He didn’t want to interrupt Connor’s pain, he didn’t want to take away from the fact that he was hurting. 

Evan could recall, so vividly and painfully, the first time Connor had ever hugged him. In his old place with Andi, while the furniture blinked out of existence, moments after Evan confessed the worst thing he had ever done. And it sort of broke him in the moment, that unearned kindness, that undeserved act of love from Connor; Evan had cried until he physically couldn’t anymore, until his eyes burned and his hands shook violently. 

But he’d felt better. He felt less alone. 

And as he rubbed circles on Connor’s back and didn’t pull away, Evan hoped he was returning the favor. He hoped he could give some of that back to Connor, let him know he wasn’t alone, that Evan was right there with him.

Connor’s shoulders kept shaking with sobs. 

Evan felt paralysed and choked on his own sadness at seeing Connor in so much pain. He just stayed, he just hugged Connor because it was the only thing he could do. “I’m so sorry,” he said gently as he could. “I’m so sorry, Connor. I love you. I love you so much.”

It just made Connor cry harder, pulling him in tighter. 

Evan felt… wrecked. Awful. 

There was the crushing and awful fact that Connor felt as if he owed Evan something for who he’d been at seventeen. That he felt guilty and that he felt sad about it because the last thing Evan wanted was for Connor to feel that way. 

And of course, there was the fact that Evan… felt similarly indebted and guilty because of his own teenage inaction. His own bullshit that stopped him from ever just saying hello to a kid he spent ages obsessing about and imagining as his friend. He wasn’t blind. In high school he could see something wasn’t quite right with Connor. And he’d done nothing. And it was all made worse by the fact that he _ was _going to say something in AP Lit that day, Evan was, he just… he chickened out. 

And Connor had gone home and slit his wrists. 

Fuck. 

But… 

They hadn’t known each other. Not really. They knew parts, dark and scary parts at that, but they didn’t know each other. They lived in neighborhoods on opposite ends of the school district. They had no mutual friends (or friends at all). Honestly, their closest connection before that afternoon in the computer lab was that Jared was cruel to them separately. 

It wasn’t fair for Connor to feel responsible for Evan’s seventeen-year-old bullshit. He wasn’t at fault for not helping Evan. Connor couldn’t even reach out for himself in the moment if his attempt in December was anything to go by. He didn’t owe Evan anything. He still didn’t. 

But fuck. 

Evan did wish they’d known each other. He wished it so badly, in high school, that he practically created himself an Imaginary Connor to spend time with. And when he thought back now, it was hard not to see all of the chances they missed or didn’t take. All of the ways they could have had each other for longer. 

God, Evan wished he had had Connor for longer. 

He wished when Connor has said “_ Now we can both pretend that we have friends” _that he had said something real, substantive. That he had said anything at all, not laughed awkwardly and mumbled something stupid. 

Things might have been so different if they had found each other young. If they hadn’t been so fucking lonely. 

Connor sniffled and then pulled away from Evan slightly, wiping his eyes. “Fuck, sorry…”

Evan tucked a piece of Connor’s hair behind his ear, resting his hand briefly against Connor’s cheek. “Don’t apologize,” He said quietly. “I love you.” He took Connor’s hand again. “I wish we had known each other too.”

Connor laughed awkwardly. “You probably wouldn’t have liked me anyway.”

“Because I was such a dork, right?” Evan said. 

“Shut up,” Connor said, and that set him off again. He started to cry, looking almost angry about it. He hugged Evan tightly. “I love you shut up I’m so fucking sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Evan said. “Nothing at all.” He held onto Connor tightly. “But I absolutely would have liked you. No question in my mind.”

“I was such a mess,” Connor said. “I missed two months of school.”

“And still went to fucking _ Columbia _,” Evan said, impressed. “High school Connor was badass.”

His eyes flooded again. “No. I really wasn’t.”

It took Connor a few minutes to stop crying. A few more to even look at Evan. He heaved a shuddering sigh, then looked at Evan, his eyes red and glassy from crying, his nose pink and his bottom lip bitten. 

He was the most beautiful person Evan had ever seen. 

“I mean it,” he said to Connor. “I wish we had talked in high school. Or middle school. Or fucking… kindergarten. It’s not fair that I’ve practically known you my whole life but I’ve only _ known _you for a few years. I’m so sorry we didn’t get to have that.”

Connor nodded. 

“About my bar mitzvah…” Evan said slowly, and Connor flinched. He opened his mouth, probably to apologize again, but Evan kept talking. “You didn’t miss anything? It wasn’t, like, a big party like some of the kids at our school had. I mean, my mom was too broke for that. I mostly had one because my Grandma Norah said it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t. She’s the one… She threw it. I… I didn’t want to invite anyone.” He swallowed. “I didn’t think anyone would even come? Other than maybe the other kids in my class at Hebrew school, since I’d gone to all of theirs. But I… I wasn’t, like. I put them in everyone’s lockers so I wouldn’t have to see them throw the invites out.”

Connor looked devastated. “I didn’t… I didn’t throw mine away, I swear, I just didn’t see it-”

“I know,” Evan said, because he’d understood. He remembered being thirteen. He had a period in seventh grade when his own anxiety about his locker got so bad that he would just carry all of his books to class with him to avoid stopping at it. He’d stuff his coat in his backpack and carry his books so he wouldn’t look stupid struggling with the combination lock. He had an irrational fear that someone was going to stuff him into his locker like they did in movies, and when he realized how unlikely that was because he was just that insignificant, Evan didn’t know if he should feel more embarrassed or relieved. “I just. I didn’t expect you to come. You didn’t hurt me by not showing up, Connor. And you were only thirteen.”

“But I…” Connor just looked so sad. “It’s stupid.”

“Try me,” Evan said. “I’ll bet it’s not.”

“I told my mom,” Connor said. “About all of the bar and bat mitzvahs happening? We had like, what, six or seven in our grade?”

“Nine,” Evan said, nodding. “I think. I went to eight that year, and then there was mine so… nine.”

Connor nodded. “So I told her. And I guess… she went out and bought me, like, clothes? A tie? Thinking I’d get all these invites… She kept going on about how bar mitzvah season was going to be so hectic? And… You were the only one who invited me and I fucked it up.”

“Connor,” Evan said, because fuck, fuck that hurt, fuck that was painful. “I’m so sorry.”

“She was so sad and I just kept thinking, like, who has such a fuck-up of a kid that they don’t even… Everyone else got invited, you know?”

“Connor… I’m really sorry.”

“I’m the one who didn’t check my fucking locker,” Connor said, shaking his head. “_ You _ did invite me, and I fucked up -”

“And I’m the one who shoved the invite into it, hoping you wouldn’t see it,” Evan pointed out. “We’re equally at fault. And it… really, it was just at the community center? It wasn’t fancy or a big deal or anything.”

Connor frowned deeper. “If I’d been there-”

“If you’d been there,” Evan said, frowning. “You might have seen me hyperventilating because I was positive I’d fuck up my Hebrew. Or you might have seen my dad getting shitfaced and barely spending any time with me all night because he was fighting with my mom and my stepmom. Or you’d have seen me hiding in the bathroom at my own bar mitzvah.” He smiled awkwardly at Connor. “It wasn’t a good day for me, really. I… you didn’t miss much at all.” 

Connor looked ready to protest, but then he closed his mouth. Evan was grateful. He pushed some of Connor’s hair out of his face. “I’m sorry today was so hard,” He said. “What can I do? To help?”

“Please don’t go,” Connor said, his voice frantic. 

Evan’s heart squeezed painfully. It didn’t matter that he had literally nowhere else to go. It didn’t matter how much he told Connor he loved him. He’d been in this place before, where the fear of Connor leaving overtook everything else. He got it. “Of course. I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here,” Evan said. He reached out to touch Connor’s hand but then stopped short, unsure. “Are you okay with me touching you right now?”  
Connor looked confused. “Yeah, why?”

“I just. I didn’t know. About what Jared did. And I never want to make you feel uncomfortable. So. I’m asking. Can I hold your hand?”

“Please,” Connor said with a miserable looking smile. 

So Evan took Connor’s hand. Connor stared at their intertwined hands. Evan’s eyes caught on the scar on Connor’s wrist. His stomach gave a nauseated turn, thinking about the pain and hurt that had resulted in that scar, thinking about the physical cut, the resolve required to take a blade to your own skin. 

Maybe that was the thing that scared Evan. He’d been a chicken in all of his attempts, afraid of pain, intentionally planning to use gravity to do the actual deed of killing him. And not that it hadn’t hurt to fall out of a tree (or to hit the pavement from a height of twelve storeys, but Evan didn’t like thinking about that) but the actual moment when the hurt happened was out of his hands. 

Whereas Connor had taken that moment into his. He had been the one to sink a razor into his wrists, and the reality of that, the gruesome fact of the skin and veins and tendons and lurking bones involved in that act? It horrified Evan.

It scared him that Connor had ever been that resolved to end his life. That he was prepared to handle that level of pain. 

And it hurt to think he’d sat beside him that morning and said nothing. Just… nothing. He’d blurted some shit about a poem, about repetition. Maybe… maybe if he’d been braver, if he’d had just an ounce of Connor’s high school resolve. 

_ Maybe nothing would be different at all. _

Fuck. 

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that they’d both been so lonely. 

“That day in English?” Evan said suddenly. “I was… I really wanted to say something to you. I wanted to tell you how sorry I was that you saw that stupid letter.” He sighed. “I should have said that.”

“You… don’t think like that,” Connor said weakly. 

“I know there’s no changing it now, but. I. I did want to talk to you.” He frowned slightly. “Honestly, senior year? I sort of… I always wanted to talk to you. And I know, really, it was a bit stupid because as far as I knew you hated me and thought I was a freak.”

“I didn’t,” Connor interrupted. 

“I know that now,” Evan said. “I. I just. I need you to know I never blamed you, or disliked you or…I wasn’t even scared of you, despite the rumors Jared tried to start. Not really. I just. I wished I was the type of person who could talk to you because. Because I think I recognized something in you and it felt important. But I never got up the courage.”

Connor looked away. 

Evan cleared his throat.

“I love you,” Evan said. “Maybe… Maybe it’s good. If we. If we talk out some of the stuff from… high school, middle school. School. Whatever. It doesn’t have to be tonight -” he rushed to add. “But. I know we don’t talk about it. Maybe we should start.”

“Yeah,” Connor said. He sounded drained. “Maybe.”

“Thank you for telling me what you did today,” Evan said, rubbing Connor’s knuckles with his thumb. “I know… I’m sure it wasn’t easy. But I’m glad I know.”

* * *

Evan’s hand is warm in his. Evan’s hands are always warm, and Connor has always loved that warmth, because it makes him feel safe. 

Evan makes him feel safe. 

Connor squeezes Evan’s hand. Evan smiles softly, then slowly lifts their intertwined hands to his mouth, pressing a gentle kiss to Connor’s knuckles. 

Fuck, Connor loves it when he does that, he loves it he loves it he loves him he loves him so, so, so fucking much. 

A thought occurs to him. 

“I meant to put dinner on. It’s all sitting in the fridge and I was supposed to put it in the slow cooker when I got home after meeting you for lunch.”

“You mean after helping the little old lady cross the street?” Evan says, his tone gentle and only slightly teasing. 

Connor smiles, knowing it’s weak but making sure it reaches his eyes, because he loves Evan he loves him he loves him and he needs to know. “She had groceries, okay? They looked heavy.”

“Boy scout.”

“Shut up.”

Evan kisses his knuckles again. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“I’ll order Mexican,” Evan says after a moment, pulling out his phone. “From that place with the chicken burrito that you like.” 

Connor shakes his head. “That place only has, like, one thing that’s kosher on the menu, and you said that last time the beans were too salty.”

“But you really like their chicken burrito,” Evan insists, squeezing Connor’s hand. “And you said their guacamole is better, too.” 

“Salty beans, Evan. Salty beans.”

Evan squeezes Connor’s hand again. “I can live with salty beans if it means you get the good guacamole.”

Connor wants to argue but there’s something in Evan’s eyes that makes him hesitate. Rather than his usual ‘I’m going to win this argument because I’m a lawyer’ expression that he tends to get whenever they disagree on something, Evan’s eyes are soft and warm and insistent. 

He can read on Evan’s face exactly what he isn’t saying. 

_ I _ know _ you. I didn’t know you then, but I know you now. _

“Okay,” Connor relents. “But we’re making margaritas. Margaritas are kosher, right?”

“As long as you don’t make them with bacon.”

Connor rolls his eyes. “Gross.” He looks at Evan, smiling as best he can. “And even if I did make bacon margaritas, you _ know _ I haven’t bought anything but turkey bacon in years, come on.”

He hopes his reply is just as clear. 

_ I know you, too. I _ know _ you. _

It’s not that the mood abruptly shifts, it’s not that all the sadness and the pain just disappear, but it’s easier to breathe from then on. Evan orders food, Connor gets into the cupboard above the fridge where they keep the alcohol and starts making margaritas. Andi had given him this book of 30 essential cocktails for his 30th birthday, which has resulted in months of experimentation. 

Considering that when Evan and Connor first became friends, they mostly just drank straight spirits together, this is probably an improvement. A+ adulting, five stars. Something like that. 

The food arrives. They curl up on the sofa, eating and drinking, sitting close together so their bodies touch, closer than usual, because something inside Connor is scared that he’ll blink and discover he’d made this all up, he’d imagined the past three and a half years, that it had all just been a sad invention. 

But Evan is warm and solid. He has freckles on his nose from being out in the sun, so many freckles, and Connor wants to count them, wants to kiss them all, wants to say I love you to each and every one of them. It could take him hours, days, weeks, months, and he wouldn’t consider that time wasted at all. 

He almost laughs at the thought. It’s pretentious poetic bullshit, but he can’t bring himself to care, because he is in love.

Connor knows he has never loved anyone the way he loves Evan. He loves him so, so much, he can’t imagine his life without him. And that’s why it hurts to realize that he’s wasted time, that Evan was right there for so long and he just didn’t know. He didn’t know it could feel like this, it could be like this. 

So many missed connections. Moments where for a moment, they saw each other, a glimpse of something shared, but were too scared to reach out, too scared to follow through, or something just got in the way. 

Evan eats a vegetarian quesadilla that’s way too salty and drinks his margarita and Connor finds himself watching his boyfriend, looking at his face and seeing glimpses of the kid he used to be. 

Evan with a missing front tooth and even more freckles, telling a bunch of kids in second grade that Santa was just their moms and dads.

Evan in a black trench-coat and a wand made from a tree branch, sitting next to Connor and reading Harry Potter at a crowded birthday party. 

Evan with his head down, shoulders hunched, trying not to be seen in the hallways, slipping past without a word as a week-old bar mitzvah invite burns a hole in Connor’s pocket. 

Evan with a cast on his arm on the first day of senior year, falling to the floor. Because Connor pushed him. 

Fuck. 

Fuck. 

“Hey,” Evan says softly, nudging Connor gently. “You with me?”

“Yeah,” Connor replies, leaning his head on Evan’s shoulder briefly. “I’m with you.”

* * *

Evan worried. Connor felt far away, despite his reassurance that he was with Evan. Evan kept kissing his hand, kept checking in, kept telling Connor he loved him. He did what he could. He couldn’t undo the past, he couldn’t take away the hurt, but he could be there. 

He’d be there. 

They got ready for bed. Changed into pajamas. Took their meds. Evan gave Connor a cautious smile, and Connor returned it. They brushed their teeth, side by side. 

And Evan took an antacid because those beans were really salty and it gave him heartburn, but he wasn’t saying that to Connor because if all he could do today was let him order the burrito he wanted then that was at least something. 

He had to do something. 

So he took an antacid and held Connor’s hand because that was what he could do. He hated that it was all he could do, but he had to do what he could. 

They climbed into bed together. Evan pulled Connor close to him, then pulled back slightly. “Is this okay?” He asked. 

“Yeah,” Connor said, and he sounded miserable. “I shouldn’t have said anything, I -”

“Connor,” Evan said softly. “I just want to make sure you’re okay. But if me checking in before I touch you is making it feel weird or worse then… I’ll stop.” He sighed. “I just. When I told you about Richard… When I. It was hard for me. But you’re not me, so if I’m making it worse or weird…”

Connor kissed Evan softly. “I love you,” He said when he pulled away. 

“I love you,” Evan said back, holding Connor’s face gently in his hands. “I _ love _ you.”

Connor kissed him again, even softer, his lips cold and minty from toothpaste. He settled his head on Evan’s chest, and Evan stroked his hair. Listened to Connor’s breathing, waiting for it to even out. Connor usually dropped off before Evan. And Evan kind of loved that about him. He loved getting to listen to him as he fell asleep, as he got some rest. He liked the couple of minutes he got where Connor was soft, resting, and calm. 

Tonight it took a long while for Connor’s breathing to even out. 

Evan wasn’t terribly surprised, but he still hated it. He held Connor a little tighter. He pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “I love you,” he whispered. “I love you so much.”

Connor sighed, and finally, finally, he fell asleep. 

Evan hated that Connor was in pain. He hated that he was blaming himself for things that happened when they were children. He hated it. Especially because Evan himself was equally to blame. He hadn’t reached out. He hadn’t tried hard enough. It was not on Connor, at all. 

It wasn’t fair that they’d both been so lonely, but that was not Connor’s fault. None of it was his fault. 

It wasn’t anyone’s fault, not really. 

But that didn’t make it better. It didn’t make the hurt less acute. 

High school had been hell, really. 

He’d hated Fridays. 

Fridays meant two full days with no school ahead. Nobody to talk to or see other than his mom, who would worry and hover and frown. 

He hated Fridays. Because Friday nights were really, extremely lonely. 

And he hated Saturdays.

Because Saturdays were endless. They stretched out forever, just hours of listlessness and sitting on his computer, watching everyone else he knew posting online about living lives and doing things and making friends from his couch. Alana Beck would do something incredible. Jared would post some stupid article about video games and his camp friends would all comment. 

And Evan would sit home and watch. Stare at the screen. Wish someone would message or comment on one of his stupid articles. 

He felt lonely. Like it was a stomachache. 

“You should tell Dr. Sherman about this,” His mom said one Saturday night as he refreshed Facebook for the one hundredth time in an hour. “Maybe you can… you can strategize how to talk to people?”

“About what?” Evan muttered. 

“Baby, you’re just… shy.”

Evan wasn’t shy. He was socially inept. He was terrified of making the first move and resigned to the fact that nobody else ever would.

But it didn’t take away the stomachache. It didn’t make him want less. 

He hated Sundays more because that was a different stomachache. Because that was dreading the next day, dreading the hallways at school and have nobody notice him. Have people look right through him. 

It didn’t stop him from trying to make things different. 

He wished everything were different. 

He wished anything he said mattered to anyone. 

So he kept trying. He’d talk to anyone about school stuff if they asked, because that was his only entrypoint. It was the only thing he had in common with people. 

He had AP Language with the same kids he’d had Honors English with since ninth grade. Evan knew their faces, these same smart kids. He’d known most of them since middle school. Sabrina Patel had come to his bar mitzvah in seventh grade. Jared had been his family friend since around the time his dad left. Nick Schultz was his lab partner in chemistry. Connor Murphy… Well, Evan didn’t really know Connor Murphy. He had a birthday party that was Harry Potter themed in fourth grade. He knocked over a printer in second grade. He’d started wearing nail polish sophomore year.

Evan noticed things. People didn’t notice him. 

People didn’t notice Connor much either, Evan thought.

They sat next to each other in English. Sophomore and junior and senior years. And Evan spoke to him only once, in all of high school. 

He was as much to blame. 

Because he noticed things. Noticed Connor’s frequent absences, noticed him showing up with dirty hair and no winter coat, smelling like pot. Noticed when he disappeared for two whole months of school and said nothing when he got back, returned to the empty seat beside Evan. 

And Evan said nothing. 

And his bar mitzvah?

He hadn’t wanted to invite people from school to his bar mitzvah at all. Frankly, he wasn’t super sold on having one at all. Getting up in front of people? Talking in front of people? Like, based on his stuttering Hebrew at his bar mitzvah, Evan supposed he couldn’t really blame his dad laughing at his decision to go to law school. It wasn’t like Carl had seen him much since. 

Evan didn’t want to invite people from school. There weren’t that many Jewish kids in his classes and his last birthday party had been in first grade. At a bowling alley. His mom ordered pizzas and rented out two lanes and he invited his whole class but only like half of them showed up. A lot of them pitied Evan. He was shy and had to go to speech therapy for a stutter and wasn’t good at eye contact. He got a lot of weird action figures as presents and his mom and dad got into a fight on the ride home because his dad said the party had been a waste of money. 

So he didn’t want to invite people to another party. Especially not one with a lot of public spectacle attached. Jewish spectacle. He remembered worrying to his mom about people making fun of the hair clip he used to keep his kippah on and her telling him that nobody had made fun of Jared at his for that reason. 

She was wrong but he couldn’t tell her that. They also made fun of him for being Jewish. Some kid a week after Jared’s bar mitzvah had drawn a swastika on Jared’s locker and there was a whole note sent home from school. Evan hid the note and never told her that. Jared was a fucking asshole and Evan still wanted to punch his lights out, but that had been horrifying and part of the reason Evan started avoiding his locker. It got hushed up pretty quickly at school but… Evan remembered. 

His mom had wanted to invite all of his friends. 

Evan didn’t have friends. 

She suggested inviting everyone in homeroom. 

Evan refused, saying it was way too many people. Too many eyes, all unfriendly, and besides they didn’t have the money to feed that many people. 

“Grandma Norah’s helping us out -” His mom tried to say. 

“No. It’s a waste of money.”

They negotiated and compromised and Evan finally relented and agreed to invite fifteen people from school. He invited the kids from Hebrew school, which meant he only had to come up with seven more kids. And since Evan had no friends (just Jared, kind of, sometimes), he just… invited the kids who he’d worked with in his accelerated classes. Sabrina Patel. Nick Schultz. Alana Beck. Stephanie Wheeler. Clarke Kelly. Donna Matthews. Connor Murphy. 

Because Evan didn’t get a lot of birthday party invites, but Connor _ had _ invited him to his Harry Potter party in fourth grade. He knew that Connor had invited their whole class, but. Still. He’d actually talked to him at his party. Maybe if he came to Evan’s bar mitzvah he’d have someone other than Jared to talk to from school. 

And sometimes, in class, if their teacher said something weird, Evan would look up and lock eyes for a second with Connor. He kept hoping maybe Connor might talk to him, but he was too scared to talk to Connor himself. Connor had cool shoes and he read a lot and he was super smart and Evan had kind of hoped, maybe, if they saw each other outside of school that they could talk. 

He’d been so embarrassed by the invitations too. 

“It’s a waste of paper,” He kept telling his mom. 

“_ Please share in our pride and joy as our son Evan Harold (Oren) is called to the Torah as a bar mitzvah...” _

“I don’t need people from school knowing my Hebrew name,” Evan had complained. “Or my middle name.” Or his name at all. 

“It’s a nice name,” His mom said. 

Evan disagreed. Though as an adult, he was a little amused to have a Hebrew name that means “pine tree.” His mom had picked something fitting at least. Even if it was _ Oren _. 

He also hated the implication that his parents, plural, were throwing this party. That his parents, plural, saw him as _ their _pride and joy. He was embarrassed because he felt like the invites made it so obvious that he was from a broken home or whatever. He didn’t want to give them out. 

But he promised his mom… 

So he’d put them in people’s lockers. He waited until the end of the day and slipped them through the grate, his hands clammy and moist and shaky. Evan had kept checking over his shoulder, terrified someone would see him putting something into their locker and tell him off for daring to think he could invite them somewhere. 

In the end, of the fifteen kids he had invited, only the other Jewish kids and Sabrina Patel showed. He’d honestly been surprised that any of them had showed. The party was uncomfortable and his Grandma Norah had cursed his dad out in the parking lot of the synagogue and mostly, Evan was just glad to have it all over. 

He didn’t blame Connor for not coming. He hadn’t had high hopes. 

...And Cynthia had bought him a tie. Fuck. 

Evan felt worse for Connor, having only gotten the one invitation, than he did for himself having few people show up for his. 

Sleep was a pain in the ass. 

Evan listened to Connor’s soft breathing, felt the rise and fall of his chest against his own, and eventually Evan drifted off. He dreamed of bar mitzvah invitations and Emily Dickinson poems and falling in a forest when there was nobody around. 

He opened his eyes suddenly. Connor was sitting up in bed, his arms wrapped around his knees. His heart was thudding hard against his ribs. Connor’s eyes practically glowed in the dark. 

“Can’t sleep?”

Connor shook his head. 

Evan nodded, sitting up beside him. 

* * *

The notebook was navy blue, covered in hundreds of tiny stars that form constellations. It came with a pencil with a tiny owl on it, which he never used because it wouldn’t sharpen without breaking. But the notebook… the notebook he used.

It wasn’t the world’s fanciest notebook, but Connor liked it, liked that it was small and unobtrusive but not boring, not just your run of the mill school supplies. He’d looked up the constellations on the notebook’s cover. None of them were in the right place, but they were pretty. 

Aquarius. Canis Major. Lyra. Orion.

The notebook was a birthday present for his tenth birthday. He’d gotten a lot of book vouchers that year - a _ lot _ of book vouchers, since so many kids had come to his birthday party who didn’t really know him, but because it was a Harry Potter party they’d made the connection that Connor liked books. 

They were good presents and he bought some good books, that’s true, but there was something about the notebook that he’d just really, really liked. 

He could put it in his pocket. Hide it away from prying eyes. It fit under his mattress, in between bigger books, he could put it in the smallest pocket of his school bag. He liked that he could keep it hidden, keep it his. 

Connor wrote in the notebook almost every day from the ages of 10 to 14. Sentences from books he liked. Lyrics from songs he liked. Observations. Thoughts. 

Nothing earth-shattering. Nothing important. 

He’d just… liked it. Liked having something small and secret. 

When things fucking sucked, he’d liked to trace the constellations on the cover with his finger, to help anchor himself, help calm himself down. 

Aquarius. Canis Major. Lyra. Orion.

They’re the four he can find in the sky now, even today. 

He’d gotten into a fight just before he turned fifteen with some asshole who’d slammed him against a locker, and it had broken a water bottle in his bag, which had ruined everything. Textbooks, school books, his phone.

His mom had been furious. She’d yelled at him for what felt like forever, then gone out and bought him a new phone the next day.

Something about safety. He didn’t have anyone to text. He didn’t really use it, except to sometimes contact Dennis. 

When he’d gone through his bag, he’d realised with horror that the notebook was completely soaked. 

Connor had stolen Zoe’s hairdryer from the bathroom to try to dry the notebook. He’d spent hours trying to save it, trying to recover it, but all his careful notes were smudged beyond recognition, leaving trails of ink all over sodden pages. 

He’d actually cried once he realised it couldn’t be saved. Hid in his room and cried, eyes stinging, face hot, something inside him screaming because it was stupid to be upset about this it was stupid he was stupid he was so fucking stupid he shouldn’t care he shouldn’t care he doesn’t care he doesn’t he doesn’t.

Connor hasn’t seen the notebook in years, but there it is, on his dresser, in his apartment, the apartment he lives in above the bookstore, that he shares with Evan. There’s no trace of water damage. He traces the constellations on the cover, slowly, reverently. 

Aquarius. Canis Major. Lyra. Orion. 

He opens it up and a slip of paper falls out. It’s small, on thin card that feels smooth to the touch, printed in black and white. 

_ Please share in our pride and joy as our son _

_ Evan Harold _

_ (Oren) _

_ is called to the Torah as a bar mitzvah _

It’s not crumpled. It’s still smooth. Still looks fresh. Clean. 

“Waste of paper,” says 13-year-old Evan, standing at the end of the bed, not looking at Connor. He’s hunched over, holding onto the straps of a too-full backpack. He looks young and tired and his face is rounder, covered in freckles. “I knew you weren’t going to come.”

“You hate waste,” Connor says, because he knows Evan, even if this isn’t the Evan he knows, who knows him. “Why did you invite me if you didn’t think I’d come?”

13-year-old Evan shrugs. Shifts. Then looks up, meeting Connor’s gaze.

“I thought you could see me.”

There’s so much hurt in those eyes, those eyes he knows so, so well. Connor feels like he’s been punched in the chest. “Evan-”

In the blink of an eye, 13-year-old Evan is gone. Vanished like he was never even here. 

Connor looks at the notebook and watches as it slowly turns the page, all by itself. 

_ Dear Evan Hansen: _

_ It turns out, this wasn’t an amazing day after all. This isn’t going to be an amazing week or an amazing year. Because… why would it be? _

_ Oh, I know. Because there’s Zoe. And all my hope is pinned on Zoe. Who I don’t even know, and doesn’t know me. But maybe if I did. Maybe if I could just talk to her, then maybe… maybe nothing would be different at all. _

_ I wish that everything was different. I wish I was part of… something. I wish that anything I said… mattered, to anyone. I mean, face it: Would anyone notice if I just disappeared tomorrow? _

_ Sincerely, your best and most dearest friend, _

_ Me. _

“Well?” says 17-year-old Evan, in a striped blue polo shirt and khakis, standing by Evan’s side of the bed. “Would they?”

“I’m so sorry,” Connor says, trying to stand up and move toward him.

He can’t make his limbs work. Everything is heavy. 

17-year-old Evan sighs, and his shoulders sag, and it looks like he can feel that heaviness, too. 

“Doesn’t matter,” says 17-year-old Evan, shrugging in a motion that looks like it’s supposed to seem casual but instead looks tiring, overwhelmingly difficult, because of the heaviness, the weight in the air. He looks right at Connor, tilts his head slightly. “It’s not like _ you _ were the one I wanted to see me, anyway.”

Connor manages to stand up. “What does that mean?” he asks, his voice raw, knowing he won’t like the answer. 

Evan shrugs again. “What makes you think you could have changed anything, anyway? My hope wasn’t pinned on _ you.” _

Another punch to the chest. Another blow. Connor staggers, trying to get his breath back, and as he does, Evan walks toward the door.

As he opens it, Connor finally gets his legs working, fucking finally, and he follows Evan out of the bedroom. 

And onto the roof of Evan’s old apartment building. 

It’s snowing. 

No, it’s not snowing, it’s…

It’s not snow, it’s tiny pieces of paper, fragments of Evan’s letter, the letter he took, the letter he ripped into pieces and threw out the window right before he slit his wrists in the bathtub senior year. 

Evan’s standing there, in a winter jacket, hat and scarf, and Connor recognizes this, knows this, he remembers this moment so vividly, he’s had so, so many dreams about being on the roof with Evan and begging him not to jump. 

“It’s stupid to think that anything would have changed,” says Evan, not looking at him. “Even if you had come to my bar mitzvah, we’d still have ended up here.” He gestures vaguely around him. “This was inevitable. This was always going to happen.”

“I don’t believe that,” Connor replies, moving toward him as fast as he can, his legs still going so, so, so slowly, like he’s trying to run through molasses. 

Evan finally meets his eyes. “It doesn’t matter what you believe. You can’t change the past.”

Scraps of paper swirl around them, the wind loud and unforgiving. 

_ Maybe nothing would be different at all. _

_ Maybe nothing would be different at all. _

Connor opens his eyes. His heart is beating too fast. He takes in a ragged breath, then another. 

_ Just a dream, _ he tries to tell himself. He can hear Evan snoring gently beside him and part of him wants to reach out and make sure he’s okay, pull him close and hold him tight and not let go, but he doesn’t want to wake him. Doesn’t want to freak him out, upset him more than he already has. 

He closes his eyes. Tries to get back to sleep, tries to calm his too-fast heart. 

_ This was inevitable. This was always going to happen. _

Connor hates that. Hates it so fucking much. 

He wishes he could change it.

He wishes he’d known. 

There’s just… so much hurt, so much pain, and even though he and Evan have worked hard to be okay, even though they have each other, what they went through as children has left marks, scars that won’t ever disappear, and Connor can’t stand it, he can’t fucking stand the idea that the man he loves suffered while he was right there and did nothing. 

Fuck. 

Fuck. 

He sits up in bed and hugs his knees to his chest. Leans against the headboard and just… tries to get his heart to stop beating so hard, because it hurts. 

This all just… hurts. 

“Can’t sleep?”

Connor shakes his head. Doesn’t look at Evan, but feels him shift beside him. Feels the warmth of his body as he moves to sit next to him. Something inside him relaxes a little at the feeling of Evan sitting beside him, and he’s almost disgusted at himself, because he doesn’t… he doesn’t deserve it. 

Evan shifts closer toward him. Leans his head on Connor’s shoulder. 

Connor lets out a shaky breath. 

“I love you,” Evan says quietly. “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too,” Connor replies, because that’s just a fact. “I’m so fucking sorry. I’m just so, so fucking sorry, Evan, I-”

“You have nothing to be sorry about,” Evan interrupts, his voice stronger than Connor expects. 

Connor blinks. Feels his eyes sting. “I was right there.” 

“It’s not your-”

“I was right there, you were _ right there _ and we didn’t-”

“Connor.” 

Connor can feel Evan’s hand reaching for his in the darkness. Evan’s hands are warm, like always, and his fingers move slowly, stroking his skin. 

Then Evan’s fingers come to rest on the scar on his wrist and they stop. 

It’s not like Evan’s never seen his scars before. Never touched his scars before. But never like this. He’s never stopped and touched them like this before, and it’s more intimate than Connor expects. 

Part of him wants to pull away. Wants to hide this horrible, ugly part of himself from Evan, spare him the reminder of just how fucked up Connor was. 

Is. 

Was. 

He doesn’t like the scars, exactly, but he doesn’t try to hide them anymore. When he was in college, he wore a lot of bracelets and wristbands, trying to keep anyone from seeing the scars. He got a raven tattooed on his right wrist near the end of his freshman year at Columbia, the first tattoo of many, and there’d been plans to get something else on his left wrist, but he’d just… never gotten around to it. 

Maybe he should. 

Maybe he shouldn’t. 

He doesn’t know. 

“I’m sorry,” says Evan, his voice barely above a whisper. “I’m so, so, sorry you…”

His voice trails off, and Connor doesn’t push. 

It’s quiet for a long time. 

Connor closes his eyes. Takes in a slow breath. 

“I researched methods,” he admits, and Evan stiffens next to him. Connor hates it, he hates it, but he feels like he needs to… say something, to talk about this, to explain, and he’ll lose his resolve if he doesn’t do it now. “I made, like, notes? I… I had options. I was… I was really fucking organized about it, actually.” He lets out a laugh that rings hollow in the dark of the room. “I did a lot of research and I… got what I needed. Pills. Rope. A razor blade. I was… covering my bases.”

“Fuck,” Evan says, sounding pained. 

“I can’t even remember why I settled on the razor,” he continues, despite himself, because he knows this is awful, this is a fucking awful thing to be talking about, that Evan loves him, that he’s hurting Evan by talking about this, and it hurts but it feels like it needs to be said. “But I read that the bath would make it… hurt less.” He swallows. “After… after that English class, I walked home, then I got super high. Snorted a bunch of oxy. I… I thought it would make it easier, you know? Make it hurt less. I… I knew it would hurt. It just… it felt so fucking inevitable. All through senior year, all the way up to that moment, it just felt like I was waiting. Waiting to die.”

“Connor, oh my god, I’m so fucking sorry.”

“When I was in the hospital,” Connor continues, “the first month they put me on something that made me a fucking zombie, I can barely remember anything, but then they put me on something else and… fuck, it was like… that inevitability just kind of…” He swallows again. Tries to explain. “I wasn’t, like, all of a sudden frolicking in a meadow, singing about how wonderful life is, but it started to feel less like… it started to feel less. And it got easier. Slowly. When I got out of the hospital, I just… refocused, I guess. I’d already got my early acceptance to Columbia, and I… my parents argued a lot about letting me go to New York. My dad didn’t want to let me go but Mom knew I… Mom knew that staying back home would just… I needed to get out of there.” Connor shakes his head. “So I did. And it got better. And I just… left it behind. Left all of it behind. I haven’t… I haven’t thought about it in years.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Connor nods. “I just wish I’d… looking back, I can see so many times where you and I could have connected? Could have… where things could have been different, and I hate that, I hate that so much.”

Evan lets out a shaky breath. “I hate that, too.”

They sit there quietly for a long moment. Something stirs in Connor’s memory. 

“Do you remember what you got me for my tenth birthday?” 

Evan seems taken aback by the question. “No?” There’s a pause, then he shifts. “No, hang on, it… it was stupid, it was a notebook and a pencil? I only had, like, $5 to spend on a present, and I remember that I picked it because you were always writing on little scraps of paper, and I thought…” He trails off. “It was dumb, it was really lame, oh my god.”

“It had stars on the cover, right?”

“It did, yeah.”

Connor feels his eyes start to sting again. “It wasn’t lame. I used it. A lot.”

“You did?”

Connor swallows. “Yeah. I did.” 

* * *

Evan hadn’t known. He hadn’t known Connor had liked the notebook. His mom had told him he could pick it out himself, but they didn’t have a lot of money and… Connor was always writing on little scraps of paper and Evan thought he probably lost those after a while, or washed them with his laundry, so he picked out a notebook covered in stars. 

And then showed up to the party where people had bought like proper books and games and he felt so stupid. His heart sunk and he sort of hoped that maybe Connor just… wouldn’t open the present in front of people. 

But Connor had liked it. 

And that… mattered. 

Evan wrapped an arm around Connor, looping it around his waist, because he just needed to have him closer, he needed him to know how much Evan loved him. “I love you so much. I…” He swallowed hard. “I was so embarrassed? That a notebook and a pencil was all I could afford? Especially when I saw all of the books and gift cards and stuff people got you?”

“It was my favorite thing I got,” Connor said, and he sounded genuine. “I’m sorry you were embarrassed.”

“I mean, in all fairness, I was embarrassed pretty much constantly from ages five to… now, so.” Evan pressed a kiss to the side of Connor’s head. “I. I… it’s probably stupid, but I. We’d been reading together, and I. I wanted to, like. Stand next to you when you blew out the candles or whatever? Because… Because I liked you and you’d been nice to me. But. Then. Like everyone looks at the birthday person? I forgot that part so I started to follow you but… then I realized everyone was looking at you? And my costume, like. I know it sort of sucked. It was super homemade and… If I was next to you they might look at me, and just... I got so embarrassed. So I stood by Jared because he was, you know. Obnoxious and loud and people didn’t look at me when I was standing near him.” 

Connor blinked a few times. “I liked your costume.”

“I should have stood next to you,” Evan said. “Or thanked you for inviting me at school the next Monday. Or… or talked to you at all.” His voice broke, and Evan’s eyes stung. “I should have. I should have talked to you… That day in the computer lab? I could have followed you or found you the next day when you took the letter I wrote? I mean, fuck, Connor, we sat next to each other in English class every day....”

“Evan.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, wiping his eyes fast. “I’m making this about me. What I’m - I’m trying to say that I fucked up. I didn’t do anything. It wasn’t… It wasn’t you. Or only you. You shouldn’t… I don’t want you to feel bad.”

“It’s… You’re not making it about you,” Connor said softly. “I think. I think it’s about us.” 

Evan nodded. His hand searched for Connors, his fingers ghosting across Connor’s wrist again, nerves picking up the gentle rise of skin of his scar. Connor flinched. 

“I’m sorry,” Evan said. 

“No it’s… it’s just. It’s weird?”

“Yeah,” Evan said quietly. He took a deep breath. He gently took Connor’s hand and placed his fingers on the scar on Evan’s left elbow. “I. When I. When I broke my arm, I hit it on my way down. I needed stitches. So. That’s mine.” 

Connor kissed his cheek, fingers gently carefully slowly tracing the scar. They were quiet for a while. 

“I… I researched methods too.”

Connor looked at him. “What?”

“I wasn’t very good at it,” Evan added, like that was important, like that mattered. “But I… You probably don’t remember this? Or you didn’t hear about it… Whatever. But in high school I had these. These notes, for all of my AP classes? I was really sort of, like, obsessive about them. Like I had these binders full of loose leaf and all of these examples, especially for APUSH and AP Calc? But. I lent them to Jared? Because I was just… He had asked me to go to prom? I was just. I was excited, you know? It was so stupid. Like I was so fucking stupid, he’d literally told me he thought I should be selling them. And. Anyway, he made copies. Sold them to other kids in our class. Alana Beck found out and went to the guidance counselors and I would have gotten into huge trouble if they had believed Jared.”

“I had no idea,” Connor said softly. 

“I just. It felt like… everything was sort of ruined? Like I went to, like, confront Jared and he told me what an idiot I was. For thinking he liked me, about prom, about all of it… and I just. I went to the computer lab and started, like, googling the most lethal ways to… to kill myself. And you walked in.”

Connor stilled beside him. 

“I was so fucking scared you’d seen my screen or-or noticed I’d been fucking crying or - It didn’t matter, I mean, it -”

“I’m so sorry,” Connor said. “I should have said something. I… I’m sorry. I was such an asshole, I -”

“No,” Evan said. “It’s not your fault I was… I just. I mean. I get it. I researched too, I…” Connor took his hand, squeezed it tightly. Evan’s fingers grasped back, then traced back up his arm, pausing at the scar on his wrist. Straight. Intentional. It must have hurt so badly… “Did it?” Evan asked suddenly. 

“Did what?”

“Did… the oxy and the-the bath? Did it make it hurt less?”

Connor stilled beside him. He took a sharp breath. “I don’t know,” He answered. “It just hurt. It hurt worse than I expected and I… I was shaking so badly? It was. It was cold that day.”

“You never wore a jacket,” Evan said, remembering. “I used to… I worried about that. Which is… It wasn’t, like, altruistic or-or kind? I worried if something happened to you because you refused to wear a coat that… That someone would find my letter and, I dunno. And make assumptions?”

Connor sighed beside him. “I ripped it up.”

“Oh,” Evan said. 

It wasn’t like he expected that Connor had kept it. That it was lurking in one of his drawers here somewhere. 

“No I. I ripped it up. After that day in English. Before I…” Connor squeezed Evan’s hand tighter, and Evan didn’t know who that squeeze was for. “I thought I didn’t, like, deserve to have it. Because it made me feel less alone and I thought. I thought I didn’t deserve to...”

“Oh.” Evan nodded. “No I… I guess. I. That makes sense… I mean. Fuck.” He was crying again. Evan was just crying. He needed to tell Connor the truth. About how he used to… how he used to pretend. Imagine. That they were friends. If Connor was telling him this, was telling him about how he ripped up Evan’s suicide note before he tried to kill himself… then Evan owed him this. Owed him the truth about how fucked up he was. “It’s. It’s really stupid… I.”

“You can tell me.”

“It sounds… You might. You might hate me.”

“I could never hate you.”

“It sounds… it sounds crazy. I know how crazy it sounds,” Evan said, gulping. “I swear I… I mean I was off my meds but. I. It’s not an excuse, okay? I know it’s not but I was. I… I was really lonely? Just. Just really lonely. All the time in high school. Jared was my… my only _ f-family _friend. And I… sometimes I’d just. I’d pretend I had a friend. A best friend. Someone to-to hang out with, talk to about shit. My mom had gone back to school and honestly my therapist wasn’t a very big help and... I know how crazy and pathetic this sounds.“ He shook his head, his breath uneven. “I’m so sorry I know it sounds… After you took my letter? It felt like. I dunno. Like. Maybe we had something in-in common? Since you never told anyone about it and… My weird imaginary best friend. I’d. I’d imagine... you. I imagined you were my friend.” 

Evan waited, scared, unsure of how Connor would respond. 

He pushed on. “That’s… I never, like, saw you or anything? Like my tendency to delude myself wasn’t, like, that good? But I’d like. I’d talk to you. Imagine what you might say to me if we were… If we were friends.” His voice broke. Evan was crying. He wiped his eyes. He took a moment to collect himself. “I know, I know how that sounds, I know how nuts that is but I…. I didn’t have anybody Connor, and I. I felt something. With you. And it was probably all in my head, because I wanted it so badly. So badly. I mean… that’s what fucking happened with Jared, I just. I made it up.” Evan took a shuddering breath. “That’s. That was why I thought I was imagining you. During the… during the loops. Because I thought, oh, well. I’ve finally cracked. I’ve gone from being aware that I was imagining you to just…. Hallucinating. And your profile picture on facebook was the same one I used to stare at thinking about messaging you in high school and that’s. That’s why I thought you weren’t real. I’m so sorry. I know that’s gross and creepy and weird and -”

“I love you,” Connor said. 

“It’s okay if that’s too much,” Evan said, his voice ragged and raw and broken. “I’m sorry I never told you.” He shook his head. “I realize how insane that sounds, and I get it… I get it if you want nothing to do with me? I get it. I should have told you before you asked me to move in, that was-wasn’t fair of me. Because I was. I was making shit up, I was always making shit up. I was making you up and it… You’re so much better than any pathetic, half-assed, imaginary version of you I could create but I… I’m sorry. It’s creepy and weird and fucked up and I am so fucking sorry. I think… I think I was terrified if I actually talked to you it would. Ruin it? Take my imaginary friend away. And there were times I could have spoken to you, times I could have… Like graduation? You. You looked at me and it was. It was probably in my head but I thought for a second you might… you might come talk to me? But I made it up, I know I imagined it, like I was always doing, because I… I blinked and you were gone and I. I’m sorry. I should have told you. I should have talked to you. I’m so sorry.” 

“I love you.”

* * *

“I love you. I love you so much.”

Evan wipes his face on the back of his hand. Connor hands him a Kleenex from the bedside table, then kisses the side of his head. Moves closer to him. 

He’s not sure what to say in response to what Evan’s just confessed. All he can think of is how fucking unfair it is that they were both so fucking lonely. 

It takes a moment for him to remember. 

“You weren’t imagining me at graduation.”

Evan blinks. “What?”

“We… there was a moment, right?” Connor asks, wondering for a moment if _ he’d _ imagined it. “There was a moment where we saw each other, right after the ceremony, and I was heading towards you and then people got in the way and when they passed, you were talking to someone else.” He sighs. “So I chickened out and left. I’m sorry.”

Evan looks at him, his eyes shining in the dark. “It’s okay,” he says, after what feels like a long time. 

“It’s not fucking okay,” Connor says, almost snaps, a wave of frustration breaking over him, threatening to spill over. “It’s not… it’s not okay, it’s not fair, it’s not…”

Fuck. Now he’s crying again, and fuck, it’s all just horribly unfair, it’s horribly unfair that they didn’t have the years, decades even, that they could have. Instead, they’d just been lonely. 

Horribly, bone-achingly lonely. 

Evan’s clinging to him tightly, like he’s afraid he’ll disappear, and Connor knows exactly how he feels, knows that feeling exactly, and holds on just as tight. It’s just the two of them, in the darkness, in the middle of the night, years and years and years later, together after everything. 

Together because of something completely insane, completely unbelievable, completely…

“Maybe the universe just wanted us to have another chance,” Connor blurts out, without really thinking. “Maybe that’s why… maybe we were meant to be together, all this time, but we’re just really stupid and it took us fucking years to figure out.”

Evan lets out this choked laugh. “Years and multiple deaths.”

Connor can’t help but laugh at that. “Could have done without the multiple deaths.”

Evan lets out another laugh, still choked but less fraught. “The universe is mysterious and arbitrary and thinks we’re dumbasses.”

“Oh my fucking _ god.” _

They hold each other and laugh, or sob; laughter-like sobbing, or sob-like laughter, it’s not like it matters what they call it, it just matters that they’re together, despite it all. 

Despite everything. 

After a while, they both end up lying back under the covers, Connor resting his head on Evan’s chest. Evan’s fingers rake through Connor’s hair, which Connor has always loved. He feels safe. Loved. Taken care of. 

This is worth dying dozens of times, he thinks. 

This is worth everything. 

Evan is worth everything. 

“I do think we’re meant to be together,” Connor says, the words slipping out as tiredness starts to take over. “I really, truly do, Evan. It’s fate. Destiny. Something.”

“As a Jew, I’m not sure if I believe in fate or destiny,” Evan says, sounding thoughtful. “But there are plenty of other things I can’t explain, so… why not?”

“I love you,” Connor says, knowing his words are slurring but not caring. “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too,” Evan replies, kissing the top of his head. 

All the exhaustion and emotion are piling up now, and Connor knows he won’t be awake much longer. 

He thinks about 10-year-old Evan’s homemade wand, covered in gold sharpie designs. 

He thinks about 13-year-old Evan’s bar mitzvah invitation. 

He thinks about 17-year-old Evan’s cast, his own name scrawled across it in too-big letters. 

He could have had Evan for longer. He should have had Evan for longer. It’s not fair. 

But at least he has him now. 

They’re together now. 

And he’s not letting him go. 

He’s never fucking letting him go. 

Evan is it for him. There’s no doubt in his mind. 

He wants to spend the rest of his life with this man, and that’s incredible, because he never thought he’d have this. Fuck, for a while there the concept of ‘the rest of his life’ was completely foreign to him.

It took them too long. Far too long.

But they are here. They are alive. They are together. 

And that’s something. 

That’s everything. 

* * *

“I love you,” Connor murmured sleepily, his head resting on Evan’s chest. It filled Evan with so much warmth and love. He ran his hands through Connor’s hair. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too,” Evan returned softly, kissing the top of his head. Connor sighed contentedly, and Evan knew he was out a moment later. He kept combing his fingers through Connor’s hair, listening to the soft sound of his breathing, letting it ground him, keep him here, in this moment, with the man he loved, until he followed Connor into sleep. 

Evan dreamt of being thirteen, his backpack was too heavy. It had all of his books and his coat shoved into it, and it made him feel unsteady, like a strong wind might knock him over. It probably would. At his last doctor’s appointment, Evan overhead the doctor tell his mom he was a bit small for someone who was nearly-thirteen. 

His backpack felt especially because it was full of invitations for his bar mitzvah. Invitations he was supposed to hand out. He guessed he could just throw them away to lie to his mom. But if he did that… then absolutely nobody would come. He didn’t know what was worse, being rejected or being too scared to try.

He waited until the end of the day, until the teachers were packing up and going home, to sneak into the hallways and put the invites into the lockers. He might have done it sooner if he hadn’t needed to go to the nurse this afternoon after he wasn’t breathing right in gym class.

Evan paid attention and he had memorized a list of all of the lockers. He’d just… he would put on in the first locker then do the next until he gave them all out. Not hard. He could do it. He tried to angle them so they stuck out just a little bit, so people would notice them in the morning… Maybe that was stupid. He should just put them in. 

But then they’d get lost…

“What are you doing?”

Evan whipped around fast at a voice behind him. Connor Murphy. He frowned. He was holding onto a book. 

“I -”

“I saw you put something in my locker.”

“It - I mean - I, uh…” Evan knew he was dreaming, that he wasn’t thirteen, but he pressed on. “It’s an invitation. To my-my bar mitzvah. In three weeks. Sorry. Sorry if that’s weird.”

Connor’s face changed. Softened. “You’re inviting _ me _?” 

Evan nodded. 

“Why?”

“You’re… Because I. You invited me to your birthday, in fourth grade. That was nice. I never had a party before now to invite you to, I haven’t had a birthday party since my seventh, since like first grade -” Evan chewed his lip, embarrassed, because he had said way too much. 

“I know. We went bowling,” Connor said, his eyebrows knitted together. 

“You were there?”

“Yeah,” Connor said, looking a bit defensive. “We played on the same lane. They kept threatening to take off the bumpers because I was ‘too aggressive.’” 

Now Connor looked embarrassed. 

But Evan smiled. He remembered. “You don’t have to come to my- It’s a stupid bar mitzvah, it’s dumb, you don’t have to-”

Connor’s face changed again, to one of stubborn resolve. “Of course I’ll come.”

“Oh.” Evan smiled a little. Then a little more.“Okay.”

And then he was twenty-seven, he was definitely totally twenty-seven, and it was winter, the holidays. The Little Book Nook holiday party had just ended and Connor had chuckled the mistletoe aggressively into the trash and Evan followed him into the storeroom because he had to kiss him, had to touch him, had to get the feeling to everyone’s eyes on him while he kissed someone else out of his mind. He blew Connor, on his knees in the dimly lit room, his stupid Hanukkah sweater discarded nearby and then Connor got him off and. 

Kissed him. 

Softly. Gently. Differently than he usually did.

After the sex part ended, Connor kissed Evan. And it was soft and nice and not during sex. And Evan’s brain, like dissolved. He just stared, his eyes wide and jaw hanging open. 

“It’s freezing outside. Stay over tonight. We can have a couple of drinks, maybe watch a movie? It’s not that late,” Connor said to him, earnest and genuine, his face open and warm. 

Evan stared. 

“Please?” He sounded so real, he sounded like he knew exactly what he wanted and what he wanted was Evan to stay. 

In reality, Evan had said no. Evan stared for another moment. “Okay,” he choked out. “I’ll stay.”

“Yeah?” Connor said with a big grin. 

“I should - I mean. But. I. I have to tell you something,” Evan said, tentatively reaching out for Connor’s hand. “Because… Because you deserve to know, because it’s not fair to not say something it’s _ lying _ and I’m trying really hard to stop lying and -”

“Is everything okay?” Connor looked worried. “Is this about Leslie? Because if you want to ask her out -”

“No! It is not about Leslie,” Evan said desperately. “I don’t like Leslie. Well, I like her, but I’m not interested in her that way, I don’t want to go out with her.”

“I don’t understand. Are you… Is something wrong? Your meds not working, are you not okay?”

“Yes. No. My meds are fine. I’m just… I’m not… I don’t know.” Evan sucked in a deep breath, stealing himself. “I like _ you _. I mean. No, that’s not - I really… I really like you? I’m. Fuck. I’m not saying this right, I’m.” He kept blinked trying not to cry but this wasn’t how this went, this wasn’t. “Connor. I have… feelings. For you, and I know we said, like, no feelings and that was just sex and-and we’re friends but… I’m in love with you.”

Connor returned his wide-eyed stare. “Oh.”

“Oh?” Evan repeated, breathless, terrified. “What does… what does that mean?” His heart pounding too hard in chest and Evan remembered this was a dream, that didn’t make sense, it was a dream and that’s not how dreams worked but he was still waiting with bated breath for an answer, a response, anything. 

Connor leaned in and kissed Evan, softly, gently. Deliberate and considered, his hand gently resting on the side of Evan’ face, holding it like it was something precious. Evan let his eyes slip closed, let himself be kissed this way that his awake, conscious self knew but his dream self didn’t yet. 

“I think,” Connor said, pulling away. “I think… me too? I. I’ve never. Like I haven’t... Done this before so I have nothing to compare it too but I… I think I love you too.”

“Oh,” Evan said quietly. 

“Oh?” Connor repeated with a quirked eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

“I guess I wasn’t… I wasn’t expecting that.”

“I love you?” Connor said, his voice tentative and strange, like he was trying it out. He kissed Evan again, intentional, deliberate, soft and loving. “I’ve never said that to someone before.”

“I love you,” Evan breathed. He kissed Connor again, his hands in Connor’s long hair, gentler now, softer, not desperate but warm and Connor pulled away. 

“Let’s go upstairs?” He took Evan’s hand in his, his fingers cold. 

“Okay.” 

And then things slid out of focus, then back in, seamless and bewildering, and Evan stared at a computer screen in the computer lab in his high school, his achy broken arm hanging beside him, the cast’s weight unbearably heavy. The cursor on the screen blinked behind the words _ “Sincerely, your best and most dearest friend, Me. _” His mouse hovered over the print icon. Evan did not click it. 

“So… what happened to your arm?”

Evan looked up to see Connor standing in the lab, holding himself awkwardly, gripping his messenger bag’s strap, his worn boots catching the light in the lab strangely. He held his jaw at an awkward angle, like he was considering smiling but stopped short. 

Evan heard his own stilted laugh and voice answer. “Oh. I um, I fell out of a tree, actually?”

“You fell out of a tree? That is just the saddest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. Oh my god.”

Evan tried to smile or laugh or play along but even knowing this was a memory, it wasn’t real, just a dream it stung. “I know.”

“No one’s signed your cast,” Connor said. 

“No I… I know.”

“Well, I’ll sign it.”

“You don’t have to,” Evan said and then he remembered, this wasn’t real, he was dreaming he was dreaming. 

“Do you have a sharpie?”

He handed it over, and Connor took his arm a little bit roughly. 

“Ow.” It slipped out of Evan’s mouth before he could stop it. “Sorry.”

“Oh. Shit, I’m… Sorry,” Connor said. He eased up on his grip and wrote his name in big, giant letters, the marker scratching along the rough surface of the plaster.

“Th-thank you,” Evan choked out to Connor. 

Connor looked at him for a long moment, then the surprise faded out of his eyes.“Yeah, well, now we can both pretend that we have friends,” Connor muttered, his voice sad and bitter and he turned to go. 

“Wait -” Evan started then swallowed hard, terrifying himself. “Wait, I. I. I’m sorry. I wasn’t laughing at you this morning.”

“I know,” Connor said, deflating a little. He gripped the strap of his bag more tightly, frowning, curling in on himself.

“Jared is an asshole,” Evan went on. 

Connor almost smiled. “Yeah, no shit.”

“I’m sorry. About this morning. I’m really sorry.”

“Not your fault,” Connor muttered. “I’m the one who went psycho on you.” He flinched. “And you have a broken fucking arm, _ Jesus _Christ.”

“We could tell people you broke it,” Evan said awkwardly. “If you think that’ll help with your reputation? People will say you’re a hero. I-I’m _ very _annoying.”

To Evan’s surprise, Connor laughed. He actually laughed, genuinely, not the halfhearted laughs he’d been giving since walking into the computer lab. Then he sobered quickly. “I don’t think I need to give people any more reasons to think I’m going to kill someone.”

Evan didn’t know what to say. He needed to wake up but he couldn’t and he needed to say something. So he blurted, “I don’t want to pretend to be your friend.”

Connor’s face went pale. “Fuck you-”

“I want to _ be _ your friend. Like. Actually.”

Connor blinked, clearly startled, the fury faded off of his face. “What?”

“I want to be friends. Because I like you.”

“Nobody likes me,” Connor said, voice still rough, aggressive. 

“I do,” Evan said. Stupidly. Stubbornly. “You’re really smart and I think you’re funny. I like the books you read. You’re, like. Always reading. So I like you. I’m just… I’ve just too, like, weird or-or shy to like. Talk to you?”

“You like me?” Connor repeated dully. “We don’t know each other.”

“You’re a Ravenclaw,” Evan rushed to say. “You told me? At your tenth birthday party. You told me. And that’s. That’s something.”

Evan earned a slightly lopsided smile in return. “And what house are you?” Connor asked, like he wasn’t able to stop himself asking. 

“I’m probably a Muggle,” Evan said, shrugging. “I’m not. I’m not brave or-or smart or kind. I’d like to get out of here but I don’t think that’s enough ambition to be a Slytherin.”

“You want to be my friend. That’s pretty ambitious.”

And then things slipped and blurred strangely, time moving in a way unlike how time moved in waking hours. Before long, Evan realized he was standing on the roof of his old apartment. He’d had this dream before, this nightmare, but this time it… it was different. The air was cold but he was holding a cigarette. 

And Connor sprinted across the roof, grabbing Evan’s arm and roughly pulling him toward the center, breathing hard. 

“What are you doing here?” Evan asked. 

And Connor started to cry. 

It wasn’t the time he killed himself, it was a year after, it was a year later and Connor and Evan had had a stupid fight and Connor had come to apologize. And Evan apologized back, he pulled Connor into a tight hug and let him cry on his shoulder. And when Connor wiped his face and looked at Evan properly, he couldn’t help himself. 

“Connor I’m in love with you.”

“What?” Connor said, blinked rapidly, like he wasn’t sure he had heard him right. 

“I don’t know why we died last year and we can’t know we won’t die again this year, but I… I’m in love with you and I needed you to know, okay? It’s not your problem or-or thing to deal with but I am in love with you and I-”

Connor’s cold lips pressed against Evan’s, a kiss that was fierce and searing and burning hot. “I think… Me too? I can’t. I can’t lose you, Evan, I can’t.”

“You won’t. I love you.”

“But -”

“I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you… for ages now, but I didn’t want to ruin this but I love you and I’m not - _ we’re not _ \- going anywhere.”

“What if it happens again?” Connor asked in a small voice. 

Evan kissed him. “I’m not going anywhere. We’re not going anywhere. We’ll fight it. Okay?”

Things shifted, slid around, again and again, strange and unreal and full of their other near misses, the other times they might have connected, only this time… This time Evan wasn’t frozen. This time he leaned over that day in English class, looking up at Connor over an Emily Dickinson poem, over the repeating and recycled words, over _ “beating- beating, _” like a drum, like his own heart to say, quietly, “Connor?”

He looked surprised to be directly addressed. “What?”

“I’m so sorry about that letter at the beginning of the year. I’m in therapy. It… I’m supposed to write pep talks to myself and. I wasn’t making fun of you or-or-”

“Depressing fucking pep talk,” Connor muttered. 

“I-I know, right?” Evan said weakly because Connor was going to go home and slit his wrists, he was going to try to die, and Evan had to stop him, had to make him hold on, stay here. “I’m kind of a depressing fucking person.”

Connor almost smiled. 

“You… I. We don’t. We don’t really know each other,” he went on, because he had to, because he had to change this story. “But. Are you okay? You seem… really, like. Down? I’m s-sorry if that’s presumptuous or-or rude but I -”

“I’m fine.”

“I… Oh.” But he couldn’t leave it there because he knew what happened if he didn’t stop Connor going home and he was terrified he might succeed even in this dream because Evan didn’t know what dreams were really sometimes they were real, other realities. “Just. If you. If you ever wanted to talk?”

“I don’t,” Connor said shortly. 

“Oh,” Evan said, and it hurt and he was so fucking scared. “Oh. Oh, I-I mean, okay, o-obviously, I -” He couldn’t breathe he couldn’t breathe or think or move because Connor was going to die he was going to die he was going to die and leave Evan alone he was going to die. 

“You’re breathing weird -”

“I -” Another strangled gasp. “I h-have anxiety, anxiety attacks, I have -” He couldn’t breathe in, maybe he was going to die, maybe. “I have an anxiety disorder, I -”

Mr. Stevens, their English teacher, came to their desks, pushed together, and calmly instructed Connor to take Evan to go see the nurse. 

“But I-” Connor looked conflicted. Because he didn’t want to take Evan to the nurse he didn’t want to do anything with Evan because he was going to go home and kill himself. But then he stooped, grabbing Evan’s backpack. “Come on.” He escorted Evan out of the classroom to the nurse’s office. It was a short walk and Evan was wobbly on his feet, struggling to breathe, and Connor sort of roughly grabbed him around the shoulders and kept him steady. 

He deposited Evan in the doorway of the nurse’s office, leaving Evan’s bag at his feet. “Well. Feel better.” Evan grabbed Connor’s arm once he turned to leave. 

“What?” Connor asked, looking bewildered. 

“Please -” Evan gasped. “_ Please _ don’t go.”

Connor looked even more confused. “This is weird. I don’t even know you. You have a thing for my fucking sister, we’re not. I don’t -”

“Please I - I know, I- I…” He couldn’t breathe Connor was going to go home and slit his wrists he couldn’t let him he couldn’t he couldn’t he couldn’t he - “I don’t have any friends, I don’t even _ know _ Zoe I just… she was nice to me once, and I… I know I don’t matter, I know - I _ know _ if I disappeared tomorrow nobody would-would notice or-or care but I … _ Please _.”

Connor’s eyes went big and round. He didn’t pull away. “Okay.”

Evan took another gasping, rattling breath. “Okay?”

“I’m not leaving you here while you’re having a fucking anxiety attack, fuck, I’m not that much of an asshole.” He started going through Evan’s bag. “You got anything in here you’re supposed to take?”

Evan nodded. “Fr-front pocket -_ I _ \- Thank you.”

“Fuck I’m not sure what I’m…” Connor handed him the bottle of anti-anxiety meds. “Can you like. Try to breathe with me okay? You’re gonna pass out otherwise.”

“Okay.”

Then the world slid off of its axis, things turning and shifting and then it was March. March a year and a month after Evan and Connor had died and died and died, and it was late. Very late, two in the morning late, and they were catching their breath on the bed together. 

“Huh,” Connor said, breathless, almost giddy. 

“What?” Evan was equally giddy, out of breath, and satisfied from sex. 

“You’re the only person I’ve slept with in a year. I haven’t slept with anyone else.”

“You haven’t?”

“Nope. Honestly, I think that’s some kind of record.”

“Really?” Evan sat up. “Only having sex with one person for a whole year is a record?”

“Well, yeah,” Connor said, sitting. “I mean, with Richard, I was only sleeping with him at the beginning, but then when I found out he was married, I kind of figured… what the hell.”

“Right,” Evan said, annoyed and frustrated that Connor had brought up Richard, annoyed and frustrated at the pounding of his heart.“So you were fucking a married guy and then a ton of other guys as well.”

“Not a _ ton _, Jesus.” Connor looked sheepish, uncomfortable. He started to look around, probably for his clothes. “I just… I don’t know, I don’t really date but I like sex. Whatever. It’s… it’s not like I feel like I’ve missed out on anything this last year, only having sex with you”

Evan frowned “You don’t date?”

Connor shrugged. “Not really? I meet guys at parties and bars and stuff, mostly.”

Evan stared. He had been that guy, once, but it wasn’t quite that simple. He still usually suffered through a date or a drink together. “And you just… have sex with them?”

“That makes me sound like a slut,” Connor mumbled, and fuck, that wasn’t what Evan was trying to do. “I just… I’m kind of an asshole, as you are well aware, and dating is not… my area. Sex? Sure. Dating? I don’t even know where I’d start.”

Evan put his underwear on. “I mean, you’d start with… getting to know someone? Isn’t that the whole point of dating? To get to know people?”

“I mean, I know _ you _, and we’re having sex-”

“But we’re not dating,” Evan said, too fast. 

“I know that,” Connor said, snapped. “But it’s fine. I’m fine with things how they are. You’re my best friend and we have sex and… it’s not like I’d be any good at dating if I tried it anyway.”

“But you haven’t tried,” says Evan, frowning deeper. “How do you… how do you know you’d be bad at dating if you haven’t tried?”

Connor frowned back. “I don’t… I mean, I’m not opposed to the idea, in theory-”

“You should date someone,” Evan said, finally, trying not to give himself away. “You can’t say you’re bad at something you haven’t tried. I bet you’d be… fine. You’d be fine at it.”

“I think you overestimate me,” Connor said, and he finally snatched up his underwear from somewhere across the room. “I’m not… I’m not good with people, so much.”

Evan blinked in surprise, looking at Connor, a little gobsmacked. “Have you met me? I’m a nervous wreck.”

“You are not.”

“I am. And I’ve successfully dated people.” He bit his lip, considering. “You should go on a date.”

“What?”

“Go on a date. See what it’s like.”

“With who, exactly?” Connor asked, his voice dismissive. “This is a genuine question. I’m not exactly swimming in free time and I’m kind of over the bar scene anyway.”

Evan knew how this had gone. He’d chickened out. He’d frozen. Told Connor to try a dating app like a coward. Like the coward he was. 

He couldn’t do that now. 

He sucked in a deep breath. “You could go on a date with me.”

Connor laughed, awkwardly, like it was a joke. 

Evan tried not to let it hurt. 

“I’m serious,” Evan said. “We could… get dinner or something. Call it a date for once?”

“But I… We’re just friends. You always say -”

“Yeah,” Evan said. “I know. I know said that. When I first said it, I had genuinely killed myself two months before. I was… a fucking disaster.” He sighed. “And honestly I’ve been kicking myself about that ever since. Because you are incredible. You are so amazing and I… I like you Connor. I have feelings for you. You’re the best person I know. Go on a date with me. Please.”

Connor smiled, this slow, sweet smile that changed his whole face, made it brighter, happier, younger. “Okay.” His smile drooped a little. “I’ve never been on a date before.”

Evan smiled at him. “I’ll be there the whole time. I promise nothing scary will happen.”

“Okay.” 

Evan opened his eyes slowly. The dawn was breaking, and Connor was still fast asleep, his head resting on Evan’s chest. In the apartment where they lived, together, above the bookstore Connor owned. 

“Mrow,” said Edgar Allan Paw, batting at Evan’s foot. 

With a cat. 

“What’s up dude?” Evan asked the cat, his voice quiet and scratchy. 

“Meow,” Edgar said, then scampered off the bed. Evan smiled at him. Then he pressed a kiss to the top of Connor’s head, and Connor smiled in his sleep and mumbled “love you.” 

They’d had so many chances… and missing them all hurt Evan’s heart. 

But he wouldn’t give up where they were now. 

The universe may well be mysterious, arbitrary, and it probably thought they were dumbassess… but they were here. They had each other. Finally. 

Connor pulled Evan closer in his sleep, his fingers gripping the fabric of Evan’s shirt. 

“I love you,” He whispered. “I love you I love you I love you.”

And Evan went back to sleep. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title from “Like A River Runs” by Bleachers


End file.
